A goal without a plan is just a wish.

Pre-Construction Services

For well over a century, the Penzel name has been recognized as an industry leader in commercial and industrial construction, as well as road and bridge construction across Southeast Missouri. This hard-earned reputation has been built on our ability to thoughtfully and efficiently plan, schedule, and build a wide assortment of projects in our area: churches, schools, retail buildings, offices, banks, municipal structures, manufacturing facilities, waterparks, and sports complexes. We believe that the more input we can garner from you and our construction partners on the front end, the faster and smoother the project will go during the actual construction, leading to our ultimate goal of creating highly satisfied clients. It’s this very reason why we prefer to deliver construction projects using the design-build method.

We emphasize meticulous planning and thoughtful feedback because we know that every decision made, and every action taken during design greatly impacts the entire project. Our attention to detail and strict project control begins with our pre-construction services and carries through to the handing over of the keys.

Penzel Construction offers these pre-construction services, to ensure the fulfillment of all your specific requirements:

Pre-Construction services begin immediately after being selected as the general contractor for a project. At this point, the Penzel team: 

• begins evaluating various potential project phases and bid packages to facilitate efficient and cost-managed construction. 
• chooses a design partner and other key subcontractors and consultants based on their ability to perform architectural work, site and civil engineering, and electrical and mechanical design for the project. 
• continues the process by making preliminary budgets for each phase of the project through quantity and square-footage take-offs. 
• finalizes a detailed construction schedule for comment and review once decisions have been made regarding the appropriate phases for the project.

Financing Your Project

The Penzel team will work closely with you and your financial institution to provide the information necessary for their approval of your project. This may involve our staff accompanying you to meetings with your lender and the creation of conceptual drawings, floor plans, and elevations to better represent the scope of your project. By working in concert with you and your lender, we can facilitate lending approval.

Community Assistance and Public Financing

The Penzel team excels at assisting our clients with securing public assistance for their projects. We are very involved in our communities and have many economic development contacts that can assist you in finding opportunities for public financing. We will look for opportunities to secure both Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) assistance and low-interest community loans wherever possible.

Concept and Design

We begin immediately to seek out information on your business, including your goals, challenges, budget, and overall vision for the project. Once the project parameters have been clearly defined, including the timeline, budget, and location, the architectural design phase can begin. At this point, some of the initial design strategy work may have already begun through the project investigation phase. From here, all project team members will work together to develop the best possible design to help the project succeed.

The project team will assess areas for cost savings and optimized productivity, while also meeting functional requirements and style preferences. The overall project vision is established during this phase, and preliminary drawings are presented for your review.

Project Construction Budget

The Penzel team will prepare a preliminary budget shortly after the major project requirements are identified. We will update the budget as plans progress, so as to keep costs up-to-date. If the possibility of not being able to hit a budget occurs, we will immediately advise you and make recommendations to bring the project back into the budget. We use value engineering to accomplish this. 

Value Engineering

We weigh the construction cost and impact on the timeliness of additional or alternative materials and equipment. We implement ideas and systems that might reduce costs without sacrificing our high-quality finished product. We recommend alternative solutions to the design to improve constructability, feasibility, cost, or performance, if at all possible. Click to learn more about value engineering.

Construction Planning

At this point, we identify the long-lead-time items—such as pre-engineered steel—and expedite their delivery to ensure we keep to our schedule. We also carefully review site constraints and plan our use of the site in advance of mobilizing to minimize disruption and allow minimally impeded day-to-day operations.

Permitting and Approvals

The Penzel team can assist with state and local permitting of the project. Projects that involve either demolition of existing structures or that require clean-up of previous users also require special handling that we can assist with.

Bidding the Project

When we get to the bidding portion of the pre-construction services, we have many key subcontractors and partners to choose from—individuals and companies we have worked with many times and whose work we stand behind. For the services that will be competitively bid on, we will distribute bidding documents through our online plan room to a list of pre-qualified subcontractors. 

At this stage, we review the drawings and specifications with the architect and/or engineers to avoid areas of conflict or overlapping work. We also take into account time of performance, availability of labor, and provisions for temporary facilities. 

Bidder Qualifications

We work collectively with you to prepare qualification criteria for the bidders. We review submittals for completeness, estimated cost, and proper use of labor. Through many years of quality work, we have built a network of extremely capable subcontractors, and have taken a proactive approach to continue the expansion of our bidders to ensure the best quality and price for our client.

Open Book Results

Penzel Construction knows that our clients want to ensure they get a proper return on their investment. It has become widely known that we share a great deal of information with our clients, including our bidding results. We want you to be involved in the selection of suppliers and to understand where you will be investing your hard-earned dollars. 

We receive and tabulate all bids for the owner’s review and final decision on award. Additionally, we make recommendations on those awards based on our past experiences with the various subcontractors, since we have worked with many of them before. Prior to executing subcontract agreements, we conduct meetings with each of the major subcontractors and the owner to go over the scope of services that the contractor will be providing on the project. 

Most importantly, we establish fixed dollar guaranteed contracts so that financing can be arranged and you can rest easy knowing that everything has been covered and is ready to go. 

Proposed Project Staffing

Properly staffing the project will be at the forefront of the coordination effort to successfully complete the project. To meet this challenge, Penzel Construction will provide a project manager who will be responsible for the project and who will answer directly to the owner. His or her primary responsibility will be: coordinating pre-construction estimating, scheduling, recommending bid packages, making recommendations on who to award the contracts to, reviewing submittals, scheduling project meetings, working with our in-office contract administrator to address requests for information (RFIs), handle payment requests, and prepare any necessary change orders.

Working with the project manager will be a full-time project superintendent, who will be responsible for coordinating the work of all contractors on site. Our superintendents are craftsmen by trade, so they may also be part of the construction crew and will be responsible for on-site safety, attending progress meetings, and coordinating their daily work responsibilities. The superintendent will work directly with the project manager on all contract issues.

Construction Contracts

Once the project has been completely estimated, the Penzel team will prepare and present you with a proposed contract for your review and acceptance. We use standard American Institute of Architects (AIA) contracts to minimize the need for expensive legal review of specialized contracts or complex contract clauses.

Pre-Construction Meeting

After receiving your plans and permits from the local entities, and utility plans, and power company requirements have been made available, all subcontractors and major suppliers review them for any changes in scope, procedure, etc. This allows subcontracts and purchase orders to be finalized.

Following your review of the plans, the schedule, and other construction details, we will hold a pre-construction meeting at our office or on the construction site with all subcontractors and major suppliers present. This meeting allows us the opportunity to go over any special requirements of schedule or coordination and to distribute subcontract packages, which include:

• Subcontracts: A subcontract is a legal agreement between Penzel Construction and its subcontractors ensuring proper performance on your project.

• Project Schedule: Subcontractors receive a project schedule prior to any construction starting so potential conflicts that are seen can be resolved before construction begins. The schedule also makes subcontractors aware of when they are required to perform their work.

We are proud to provide our clients with complete design-build, general contracting, pre-construction, historic renovation, restoration, and construction management services. In addition, Penzel Construction is a leader in highway, road, bridge, and culvert construction throughout Southeast Missouri.