You can hire many professionals for your real-estate development project, but one of the most important is a civil engineer.
Why? Because they help design and plan out structures before construction begins.
Civil engineers are responsible for designing, constructing, and maintaining any publicly-owned infrastructure. They ensure that new developments match up with existing plans to avoid costly delays or other issues down the line, which could cost both time and money as well as affect quality assurance inspections before opening day.
In today’s article, we’ll discuss why civil engineers are one of the most crucial professionals in any built environment.
What Role Does A Civil Engineer Play?
The role of a civil engineer is to conceive, design, and build infrastructure for both the public and private sectors. They’ll identify the many technical issues related to the property, including utility, topographic, and environmental constraints that might otherwise go unnoticed if they were not present during the initial stages when planning takes place.
When a civil engineer is called upon to plan for the construction of a new building or development, they will typically offer services that include master site plan support, utility plans, off-site earthwork analysis, master grading and drainage plans, and preliminary water and wastewater plans.
Civil engineers may also be tasked with determining future building maintenance requirements, analyzing existing utility capacities, and evaluating zoning restrictions. Their responsibilities may also include identifying how an area will be used now or in the future, and determining what materials are needed, so it doesn’t cause any problems later down the line.
Needless to say, with all of the roles that civil engineers play throughout the entire real estate development process, they’re absolutely invaluable to the industry as a whole.
4 Questions To Ask When Hiring A Civil Engineer
There are numerous factors to consider when hiring a civil engineer for your real estate project. And asking them questions during the interview process prior to hiring or contracting a civil engineer is vital.
Here are a few of the questions you should ask your civil engineer prior to hiring them.
#1 Do They Have Experience?
It’s always important to thoroughly review any candidates prior to hiring a company or an individual civil engineer. Recent experience should play a big part in this review process since regulations, licensing requirements, and permitting can change over the years. Your engineer should also have thorough and up-to-date understanding of drainage, utility plans, and grading.
Don’t be afraid to ask if your engineer has recent experience and knowledge working with other design teams and be sure to check the references they share with you.
#2 Are They Accredited?
Ensuring your civil engineer has all verified credentials can reduce your liability greatly. This includes checking that their licenses and permits are up to date according to your local and state municipalities.
#3 Do They Have Expert Knowledge of Land-Use?
Land-use regulations are always changing and your civil engineer needs to be up to speed on all of the current regulations, as well as any potential regulations that might be coming down the pipeline during the entirety of the project. They should also have experience in filing submissions for these since regulations are constantly changing.
#4 Do They Have Critical Thinking Skills And Are They Creative?
It’s not a matter of if something will go wrong during the development process, it’s a matter of when. Complex problems will arise at some or multiple points throughout the development process. A solid civil engineer should be able to think quickly on their feet and provide detailed creative solutions to combat those problems.
Your engineer should also have the foresight to know how the solutions they provide will change other parts of the process since one change could require multiple others to make it work. In addition, they should be able to utilize their critical thinking skills to help develop site concepts that will increase the value of your land project over time.
How A Civil Engineer Brings Value To Real Estate Developers
A civil engineer’s key skills are a necessity for assessing infrastructure and raw land for a real estate development. Here are just a few examples of the added value they’ll bring you throughout the project process from start to finish and beyond.
Expertise In Compliance
Experienced civil engineers provide great assistance in ensuring that real estate development projects meet all current regulations and requirements.
Maximizing The Value Of The Project
A good engineer will be able to mitigate problems prior to them occurring, or correct problems early with efficient and effective solutions that ultimately can save a company a good deal of money. They’re skilled at looking at all angles of a project to ensure that development costs are kept to a minimum and effective value is maximized.
Project Management Services & Additional Oversight
Civil engineers are highly specialized in monitoring development operations, as well as addressing issues that may arise along the way, offering that next level of oversight throughout the process.
Throughout the process, a civil engineer provides management services by ensuring all implementations are completed in detail throughout the different phases of construction to verify that everything is completed accurately.
Introducing ViewPoint Engineering
An expert civil engineer is invaluable to the overall success and quality of a development project. And having a civil engineer on your side can determine the overall direction that your project goes.
At ViewPoint Engineering, we’re committed to designing better places to live, work, and play in Texas. Based out of Austin, we’re one of the leading civil engineering firms and we’re experts at residential planning, commercial planning, government public works, and infrastructure design and planning.
Our civil engineers have provided innovative civil engineering solutions for commercial and residential developments, educational institutions, healthcare facilities, retail establishments, industrial sites, manufacturing facilities, and a whole lot more.
Our team can serve a multitude of roles in civil design, including technical advising, infrastructure design, permitting, project management, consultant coordination, and construction management.
We’d love the opportunity to be your trusted partner along the way! Contact us today to schedule a call to learn more about how we can help you on your next project.
