ngineers are key players on any design team, for self-storage and other types of buildings. The design team comprises civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineers; an architect; and a landscape architect, says Rachel Parham, president of Noah’s Ark Development and NDS Construction, units along with Learn Self Storage of The Parham Group based in Bulverde, Texas.
Given engineers’ importance to any project, how should owners and developers choose them for their projects? Should they use engineers the builder recommends or hire third-party engineers? That depends largely on the builder’s experience with self-storage, experts say.
Doing this helps with value engineering, which is especially important when costs of materials and labor rise and lead times increase, she says. Investopedia defines value engineering as “a systematic, organized approach to providing necessary functions in a project at the lowest cost. Value engineering promotes the substitution of materials and methods with less expensive alternatives, without sacrificing functionality.”
Parham says, “We don’t need to overdesign a slab or a building.”
Building codes control the process, however. The design team needs to understand those codes well. And they can change depending on the jurisdiction. Using engineers who are local to the project can streamline the process.
A self-storage newcomer looking for a design team should work with a developer who has a self-storage-experienced design team in place, says Parham. Taking the in-house approach can be a nightmare. She has worked as an owner representative for developers who didn’t use NDS Construction but instead used in-house design teams.
“It was a disaster, in all honesty,” Parham says. “We ended up pulling it out of the general contractor’s hands and putting it back with the owner and us so we could design a facility that made sense, that we could value engineer.”
Having someone who knows how to manage design teams as a whole is also important, she says.
Once you’ve committed to a builder, though, using the engineer the builder recommends is “the fastest way” to design a project, says Andy Sullivan, Midwest region business development manager for Elevate Structures, based in Villa Rica, Ga. But that requires trust, and it limits the ability to “get competitive pricing.”
“My preference would obviously be that I want every guy to sign up with and want me helping them design their building,” Sullivan says. “But if I’m standing in the developer’s shoes, I realize that’s not always in their best interest, either. But I will tell you that all of us building guys, we’re not in the drafting business. It’s part of the service we offer, but we don’t make any money off of drafting and engineering. We make the money once we supply and erect the buildings. If I provided a set of engineer’s drawings to a customer and he decided he was going to go shop it out to somebody, that’s a relationship killer from my perspective.”
“We typically act as the general contractor [GC]; if we do hire a general contractor, we oversee them like crazy,” says Nitzberg. “So, we always pick the engineers, and we always hire them, and they’re always independent. We don’t just say, ‘We’re going to hire the GC and we need some engineering reports, so you pick the engineer, and you hire them and send me the bill.’”
However, Nitzberg says that if a smaller operator is building its first, second, or third facility and doesn’t have resources like Devon does (for example, it has a 30-employee construction division), then “you’re not going to have those relationships, and you pretty much have to depend on whoever you select as your general contractor to bring those relationships with them.”
“If you get to our size, we like to pick firms we know, ones we’ve worked with, ones we know what the cost is going to be and what the quality of their work’s going to be, and they understand what we’re trying to accomplish,” Nitzberg says. “And that doesn’t mean we’re trying to build a Taj Mahal for this engineer. We have those relationships over many, many years and in most of the markets we’re in, so we have go-to firms.”
A frequent problem is when engineers with no self-storage experience bring their background in apartments and industrial buildings, for example, to a self-storage project, which requires light-gauge framing.
“A lot of times as an owner’s rep, we come in as a consultant for the owner,” says Parham. “We train those engineers on what we need them to do to design it and not overdesign it.”
Parham says the engineers she has worked with were open to learning how to tailor designs to self-storage needs. “They’re students for life. I believe an educated industry is a smart and successful industry.”
Sullivan agrees that value engineering is among the most important considerations, “not necessarily drawing it as fast as you can or as strong as you can.” Structures must meet building codes, “but you don’t want to overdesign it because it becomes an unviable project if the cost of construction is too high.”
If you hire an engineer who is experienced with self-storage, even for $20,000 to $30,000 more than others might charge, Sullivan says, “he’s going to save you six figures in the design of the building.”
“We build a lot of buildings similar to the way everybody else does,” Sullivan says. “We also have a proprietary system that structurally is equal to anything that’s in the market that allows us to erect it at about two and a half times the pace. We go from about 6,000 square feet a week on average to about 15,000 with our system. So, any opportunity we get to talk with an engineer on the front end, we want to let him know what all his options are.”
The biggest way Sullivan is able to improve projects is by understanding early on how building codes’ nuances affect self-storage. For example, many states still use the 2018 international building code. It requires that if you build more than three floors above grade, then you must fire spray at least part of the building, “which is extremely expensive.” The code also prohibits fire spraying light-gauge metal, instead requiring the more expensive structural steel.
“But if we go to the 2021 code, we’re allowed to go four floors above grade and not have to fire spray an unprotected structure,” Sullivan says. “So, that’s a big difference where I can see a four-story design and advise the client and architect or engineer to ask for a variance to the updated building code. With that, we (can) save the client half a million to $600,000 on a project right off the bat, without compromising safety.”
If you’re hiring a mechanical or structural engineer, Nitzberg says you’ll do well to clearly understand the work’s scope and estimated prices in advance. “Don’t give the engineering firm a blank check and say, ‘Call me when you’re done and send me the bill,’” he says. “Especially on a conversion, you knock down a wall and it turns out to be a load-bearing wall, and you’ve got a whole bunch of problems.”
Nitzberg agrees that understanding formal building codes in every jurisdiction where you work is crucially important. Equally as important is understanding jurisdictions’ “unwritten codes, what they like and don’t like.” He says, “We always try to hire as local as we can or a firm that’s done business in that jurisdiction with permitting.”