Riviera Beach Cuts Costs, Increases Efficiency with Civil 3D

In Palm Beach County, Fla., the city of Riviera Beach is a growing harbor city with a population of 35,000. The city’s Department of Community Development, which is responsible for planning and zoning, building and engineering, has worked for several years to perform annual roadway restoration or reconstruction projects in an economically depressed part of town, aiming to improve property values and develop a new sense of community for the residents. The department has undertaken these roadway projects with the help of funds from federal Community Development Block Grants, and until recently, it has been forced to outsource much of the design work to consultants. But in 2007, the city adopted AutoCAD Civil 3D software, which has allowed it to take the work in-house, cutting costs and allocating internal resources more effectively. Before Riviera Beach adopted Civil 3D software, the city faced several challenges:

• Work overload. Two employees within the city’s engineering division were often required to manage as many as nine capital improvement projects simultaneously. “Under those circumstances, finding the time to perform design work can be very challenging,” says Ricardo Wiswell, an engineering technician within the Department of Community Development.
• Increased costs. Hiring outside consultants helped relieve the burden on the city engineers, it could cost as much as $35,000 per project.
• Unnecessary complexity. Working with consultants also made some projects more complex than necessary, as it was difficult to coordinate between the consultants and the many city departments. In this design environment, change orders during construction were common, each requiring time-consuming review and approval by the County. “A single change order could delay a project for two weeks or more,” Wiswell says.

Since adopting Civil 3D, the city has improved productivity and efficiency on numerous projects, helping enable the engineering division to perform previously outsourced work in house. For instance, a recent project was the $640,000 reconstruction of 1,340 linear feet on 34th Street. The project included the replacement of all water lines, fire hydrants, sub grade, base rock, pavement, curb­sides, and sidewalks in the area. To help fully implement Civil 3D, the city engaged CADD Centers of Florida, an authorized Autodesk reseller. For a fraction of a consultant’s fee, CADD Centers customized Civil 3D and helped simplify the design process, enabling city employees to perform most of the design work in house. CADD Centers also created templates for reuse on future projects, which will help save time and money in the future. Using Civil 3D, the department engineers created a higher-quality design under challenging conditions. “The city is very flat, with existing sidewalks and driveways at different elevations,” Wiswell says. “We had to match every house or driveway up to the right of way line.” CADD Centers set up Civil 3D to better match those points and created a cor­responding design profile, saving consider­able project time. The engineers also used Civil 3D to help accom­modate vertical curves on the street. The project required a balanced design profile shape that didn’t require too much fill or borrow, and would meet the driveways at a slope permitted by the city code, Wiswell says. Civil 3D helped the team balance those objectives and quickly achieve the requirements. While Civil 3D “typically shows us conflicts between the water, sanitary, and storm sewer lines as we design,” Wiswell says, “sometimes we discover something that is not in the plans.” On this project, the City detected several unforeseen utility line conflicts.  But with Civil 3D, engineers were able to resolve those conflicts “on the fly” before releasing construction documents, Wiswell says. “The Civil 3D model helps us work around unexpected obstacles in a better, faster, and more comprehen­sive way.” Working with Civil 3D also made it easier to work with other agencies and departments. Wiswell says his department’s Civil 3D-designed plans were well received by the utilities district and the public works department and helped improve communications with those groups. Civil 3D also made it easy to produce compliant documentation for local permitting agencies, includ­ing the Department of Environmental Protection. “They reviewed our permit and quickly approved it without a single comment,” says Wiswell. Due to the increased productivity and efficiency of working with Civil 3D, the city of Riviera Beach completed construction and bid plans for the 34th Street project 60 days ahead of schedule and saved $30,000 in design fees. “We expect to save more each year and plan on using Civil 3D on many more projects,” Wiswell says. You can download the full case study here. Nancy Mann Jackson is a freelance journalist who writes regularly about local government and sustainability issues. Learn more about her at www.nancyjackson.com.