General Contractor

What is General Contracting?

In projects using a general contractor, the owner contracts with a design firm and/or self-performs engineering to complete construction documents with which the owner solicits fixed-price bids from a general contractor to perform the construction work. 

This delivery method is sometimes known as Design-Bid-Build. 

In this situation, the general contractor would solicit bids from specialty subcontractors and contract with and manage those subcontractors. Also included under this method is the situation where the owner contracts for individual construction disciplines separately, sometimes in a phase approach as design is being completed, and the owner manages and coordinates the multiple prime contracts.

Carl A. Nelson & Company has been providing construction services as a general contractor since 1913, and continues to build projects in that role for owners in a range of construction market segments. We are a licensed general contractor in more than 20 U.S. states, including Iowa and Illinois. 

Our trained craftsmen and experienced field supervisors are backed up by a team of construction engineers and construction managers who work together throughout your project to ensure we are living up to our promise of Fairness and Honesty, Quality Workmanship and Service Second to None.

After being selected as the General Contractor, Carl A. Nelson & Company takes the finished design from the Owner's design consultants and brings it to completion. We self-perform much of the work we contract for on general contracting projects.

We employ more than 50 skilled construction craftsmen, foremen and jobsite supervisors, who are trained in skills ranging from carpentry and welding to millwright and site-cast tilt-up concrete construction. We require our craftsmen to be OSHA 10-hour-certified, while our field supervisors are required to have the 30-hour OSHA certification. Our superintendents average more than 25 years of construction experience.

Pre-construction plan review

CANCO's experienced team will immediately upon receiving the drawings review them for potential constructability issues and alert the architect and Owner of any potential challenges to on-time or on-budget completion. We know it is better — and cheaper — to build the project correctly the first time, than to require costly and time-consuming rework later.

On general contracting projects where the initial design does not include Building Information Modeling, and 3D clash detection would be beneficial to on-time and on-budget completion, Carl A. Nelson & Company is able to provide those services at Owner request through Nelson Design, Inc. CANCO's successful application of 3D modeling to a general contracting project for an industrial client was highlighted in the Summer 2020 edition of our wibi newsletter. 

Code Review also is available from Nelson Design, Inc., at Owner request.

Who can use a General Contractor?

The Design-Bid-Build delivery method is broadly available to public and private owners. 

Public owners typically are required by law to accept the lowest qualified bid. Private owners have the flexibility to negotiate directly with a general contractor; use a short-list bid procedure where a small group of preferred contractors is invited to submit bids on a job; or use an open bidding process.

General Contract project examples

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