The Builders Counsel: A Construction Law Blog from Washington Construction Lawyer & LEED AP Douglas S. Reiser

The Exchange has a remarkable bid library and tools to make your bid submission a snap

Several months ago, I began discussing how your construction company might find public works jobs. Public projects are a competitive target due to the freeze in private construction. With a poor economy, more and more contractors are focusing their efforts on the government’s wealthy pocket.

I have noticed lately that most State of Washington, King County, City of Seattle, and Seattle Public Schools projects are being listed and promoted for view on a particular site. Builders Exchange of Washington is a former physical plan center that recently went electronic. Nowadays, all their project information is posted online for easy access and viewing.  Its pretty incredible.

What once was a laborious and difficult task, is now as simple as clicking a link. Builders Exchange does a wonderful job of cataloging all project specifications and other documents, for ease of view. Their library of projects appears to grow daily.

This plan company also allows you to bid online! Check out their FastBid service, a downloadable software, that allows you to prepare documents and issue construction bids:

The Builders Exchange’s proprietary FastBid online system allows those in the building industry to review building documents and to measure, estimate and prepare construction bids with complete accuracy, all from BXWA’s web site. Architects, general contractors, subcontractors and others now are able to prepare bids and review building documents any hour of the day or night from their office or work site without traveling to a plan center. In addition, project architects and general contractors save the expense of preparing numerous sets of drawing plans. Now one set of plans posted on the BXWA web site can provide information to unlimited numbers of users at once.

These guys did not contact me and I do not know one person that works with them. I have, however, been utterly astonished at the service they provide. I would recommend that anyone interested in public construction work take a look.

The list of posted projects can be accessed here. Take a look, and good luck bidding!