For those long time followers, I have been tracking the total revenue by delivery method of the
Top 100 CM at-Risk and
Top 100 Design-Build firms as reported by Engineering News Record each year along with their annual rankings.
I have updated a
chart each year showing how the total of CM at-Risk Revenue compared to the Design-Build Revenue.
I started this to show that though ENR's story headlines kept promoting Design-Build as taking over the world, their own reported numbers disputed this fact and that ever since 2003 the total of the CM at-Risk revenue actually exceeded the total Design-Build revenue. (
See my Letter to the Editor from back in 2006.)
Well, the numbers are in for 2009 and they are both down, CM at-Risk is actually down slightly more, so they are now in a statistical dead heat!
Revenue from projects done on a CM at-Risk basis from the Top 100 firms in that category was $89.34 billion in 2009, down 13.5% from 2008's all-time high of $103.34 billion.
Revenue from projects done on design-build basis from the Top 100 firms in Design-Build fell only 8.4% in 2009 to $89.43 billion, from $97.60 billion in 2008.
ENR attributes this to the substantial increase in the public sector's use of design-build. What do you think? Let me know if you have any comments?