Canyon Design Build

We started working with Canyon in January 2014 because we were very impressed with Frank Davi and his professionalism. We are busy and wanted someone who would manage a fairly bog construction project. The initial meetings were good and we hired them to do the design and start an estimate. They did a good job with the design and had some nice ideas, although it's a pretty straightforward space and design. Then there was no communication at all for a while, except that the person who was communicating with us abruptly left the firm. We then found out that they had had a lot of turnover, with nearly everyone whom we had met earlier having left. That worried us, but we got a decent explanation and continued working on the design with them. Then after much pushing from us, we got an estimate, which in our opinion was an overestimate. One good thing is the estimate was very detailed. However, Canyon was planning to use subcontractors for almost every aspect of a straightforward finishing project, was charging us to supervise/aid the subs and was charging us both overheads and profits on subcontractor charges as well as on their own labour to supervise the subs. We thought that was double charging and convoluted. They evaded answering any direct questions about the price and we were frustrated enough to stop working with them. As an example, they charged for six person-hours to present-not develop, just present-the estimate to us. Three people came to present it, which we didn't ask for. The charges for that visit seemed excessive to us. In conclusion, they talk a good game and gave us good plans (no CAD!) for a straightforward project. We thought their price estimate was high and overly padded . They seem to have administrative or other issues since a large number of staff left abruptly in the past couple of months. We will not be working with them in the future.

We've been wanting to remodel and add to our home ever since we bought it a few years back. We met Canyon Design Build at a home expo in Lafayette, CA and worked with them for a few weeks as described above. At the same time we started meeting with other architects, home designers, and builders At the end of the day, we decided to hire a local architect that has remodeled and expanded several homes in our neighborhood. We did not use Canyon Design Build for a couple of reasons. First, it seemed that our project was much larger than they (or at least the designer we met with) had experience doing. Although some of their projects seemed more complex because of building sites challenges or limitations. we had no doubt that they could handle it from a construction perspective. A second reason was that we weren't sure that we wanted to give up the bid process to go with the design-build model. In my notes of our first meeting I wrote: "There would be fewer opportunities for the project to get derailed compared to a design-bid-build. A design/build company is interested in getting the project built so they may push a bit harder to get design decisions made and in the end build the house as it was designed." It is now over a year later, and we are still working with our architect. He is in no hurry. But then, we haven't given the project the attention it needs either.