April 30, 2008

Design

Ontario Realty Corp. adopts Ontario Association of Architects document

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

The Ontario Realty Corporation (ORC) will base its new consultant contract on an industry standard form, the Ontario Association of Architects’ document 600.

Standard supplementary conditions will be developed in consultation with the industry.

“We are working towards simplifying and clarifying while we re-engineer our business model,” Mike Greidanus, ORC senior vice-president, project services, said in a statement issued by the strategic opportunities committee.

“Our goal is to create a higher level of success in our projects. Using industry standard contracts as the foundation of our documents is an important step toward achieving that objective.”

The announcement comes in the wake of ORC’s adoption of CCDC 2 as the foundation of its new construction contract. That, too, will be used in conjunction with a set of standard supplementary conditions.

Developed with industry, a draft of those supplementary conditions was recently approved in principle by the board of the Ontario General Contractors Association (OGCA).

ORC’s intention to use the OAA’s client-architect contract as the foundation for its standard consultant contract was given a thumbs-up by association president Sean O’Reilly.

“The design professions have been pressing ORC to use the OAA contract,” said O’Reilly, principal of 3 stones architecture design. “We are very pleased to learn that it has committed to do so.”

Consulting Engineers of Ontario President John Gamble cited this as “yet another example of the positive results” arising from ORC’s consultation with the industry through the standing strategic opportunities liaison committee.

His association, along with the OAA and the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario (ARIDO), will work with ORC to develop the supplementary conditions.

ORC’s Greidanus said the corporation is interested in moving forward quickly. “Our construction and consulting contracts are, of course, tightly linked,” he said. “Based on our positive experience working with the (committee) on the construction contract, we are optimistic we can have the consultant supplementary conditions completed this summer.”

Greidanus is scheduled to participate in a roundtable at the OAA’s annual conference Friday in Niagara Falls.

He will discuss key components of ORC’s new project services delivery model, including a simplified process for consultants to pre-qualify for work on ORC projects.

Greidanus also will outline the process for outsourcing project management services. A request for proposals (RFP) for project management service providers will be issued early this summer.

The Ontario Realty Corporation, one of Canada’s largest real estate management companies, is a major customer of Ontario’s design and construction sector. It awards an estimated $350 million a year in contracts.

The mandate of the strategic opportunities committee is to facilitate consultation between ORC and the design and construction industry. Participants are CEO, OGCA, OAA and ARIDO as well as the ORC itself.

The committee currently has three working groups focusing on: standard contracts; prequalification, evaluation and procurement; and improvements to ORC’s outsourced project management model.

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