CM-as-Agent / Fee-Based Construction Management
CM-as-agent is construction management for a stated fee: Grandview plans, procures, schedules, and supervises your project while the trade contracts stay in your name and you pay actual costs directly. It’s built for Utah owners — boards, institutions, experienced developers — who want professional management without giving up control of the money.
When the agency model is the right structure
Choose CM-as-agent when your organization needs open procurement and direct control of contracts. Boards, church building committees, HOAs, and institutions often have bylaws or stakeholders that require every trade bid to be visible and every dollar traceable. Under the agency model, all of it runs through accounts you control, and our only compensation is the fee we stated up front.
The trade-off is worth saying plainly: because you hold the contracts, you also hold the construction risk. An overrun lands on you, not us. Owners who want that risk transferred should look at open-book CM-at-risk or GMP contracting, where Grandview holds the contracts and caps your exposure — for a higher fee that pays for the risk we’re carrying.
Two nearby structures get confused with this one. Owner-side construction management is oversight of a project another builder is running — useful when a general contractor is already under contract. And multi-prime coordination is what agency CM often becomes in practice: several prime contractors signed directly to you, with us sequencing the seams between them.
Who holds what: contracts, money, and risk
The mechanics matter more here than in any other delivery model, because the paper defines the protection. We write the bid packages, prequalify trades, level the bids scope-for-scope, and recommend award — but the contract is signed by you, and payment flows from you to the trade. There is no contractor markup on trade costs, because the trade costs never pass through us.
That structure puts three administrative duties on our desk that a lump-sum contractor never shows you. First, verification before award: every trade’s Utah DOPL license gets checked at dopl.utah.gov and their insurance certificates get issued naming you as the contract holder. Second, lien administration: because you pay trades directly, we collect conditional and unconditional lien waivers in your name with every payment cycle. Third, the decision log — award decisions are formally yours, so each arrives packaged with the leveled bids, our recommendation, and a needed-by date.
Grandview builds under a Utah DOPL B100 general contractor license (#14282236-5501). On agency engagements we’re typically not self-performing — we’re managing — but holding the license means your bid packages are written by people who have built the work, not just scheduled it.
How a fee-based engagement runs
- Fee agreement. A fixed fee or stated percentage, in writing, with the service scope defined — preconstruction only, construction phase only, or full duration.
- Preconstruction. Budget from real quantities, constructability review, and a procurement plan: how many prime packages, in what sequence, bid to current Utah-adopted code — Utah adopted updated I-codes effective July 2026, and packages priced to the old edition become your change orders, not ours.
- Procurement in your name. Bid packages out, bids leveled, awards recommended, contracts executed by you with our administration.
- Permits and schedule. Permits are pulled under the owner’s project, so we build the jurisdiction’s real review timeline into the master schedule — fast-growth cities like Lehi and Saratoga Springs run heavier plan-review volumes than established Provo or Salt Lake City processes.
- Build and report. Site supervision, weekly cost and schedule reporting against your accounts, pay-application review before you release funds, and change-order control with your signature required.
- Closeout. Punch list, final lien waivers from every prime, warranties, and as-builts — assembled and handed over, since the contracts they attach to are yours.
What does CM-as-agent cost in Utah?
Agency CM fees on Utah projects commonly run 3–7% of construction cost — a ballpark planning range, not a promise. That’s lower than at-risk pricing for a structural reason: there’s no contingency or risk premium built in, because the construction risk stays with you. For well-defined scopes, a fixed fee often makes more sense than a percentage, since a percentage fee shouldn’t grow just because the project did.
What moves the fee up: many small prime packages, phased work in occupied buildings, long durations, and owners who need heavy reporting for boards or lenders. What moves it down: fewer packages, a single jurisdiction, and a decision-maker who can actually decide. Budget separately for owner-side costs the fee doesn’t cover — builder’s risk insurance, permit fees, and your own construction contingency.
Questions we actually get
Can I get a guaranteed maximum price under agency CM?
No — and be skeptical of anyone who offers one. A GMP requires the contract holder to absorb overruns, and under agency CM the contract holder is you. If you want a capped number, the structure to ask about is CM-at-risk or GMP contracting, where Grandview holds the trade contracts and the cap is contractual.
What happens if a trade contractor defaults mid-project?
The contract is yours, so the remedy is exercised in your name — but we run it: documenting the default, quantifying completed work, rebidding the remainder, and resequencing the schedule around the gap. Prequalification is the real protection, which is why we verify licenses, insurance, and workload capacity before recommending any award.
How is the fee set — percentage or fixed?
Either, stated in writing before you commit. Percentage fees suit evolving scopes where the work quantity is genuinely unknown; fixed fees suit defined scopes and remove any incentive for the project to grow. Duration matters more than construction value in our pricing, because supervision and reporting are time-based costs.
Do we need our own construction expertise on staff?
No, but you need a decision-maker with authority. Awards, change orders, and payments are formally yours under this model, so a board that meets monthly needs a delegated signer or a decision calendar built into the schedule. We package every decision with a recommendation and a needed-by date so nothing stalls in committee.
Where agency engagements fit
CM-as-agent is one of several delivery structures under our construction management practice, which sits within Grandview’s planning and project management group. If the structure question is still open, start there — or tell us about the project and we’ll recommend one.
Tell us what you’re working on
We reply within a couple of hours during business hours — a day at most. You’ll get a straight read on scope, sequence, and budget before anyone commits to anything.