Orange County Youth Transition Center reaps time, cost savings with innovative project delivery platform

At Balfour Beatty, great ideas have a way of taking flight thanks to our highly collaborative culture and a dynamic employee engagement program known as My Contribution. The recent adoption of Join, a cutting-edge project delivery platform, is a perfect case in point.

First introduced to the business by Lead Estimator Jorge Vargas as an idea in My Contribution, Join was instrumental in realizing $20 million in value engineering solutions on our $140 million Sacramento Airport Pedestrian Walkway (SMF) Construction Manager at-Risk project. And that was just its launchpad.

Eager to build on the SMF team’s success, Director of Design Management Kristen Tuerk leveraged Join on the Orange County Youth Transition Center (YTC) project which broke ground in August 2025. True to her expectations, Join has proven to be a powerful tool in our toolbelt

Over the project’s nine-month preconstruction period, Join played a key role in supporting Orange County’s evolving scope and project goals. Through Balfour Beatty’s collaborative contracting expertise, flexibility and the efficiencies Join created, the owner will be able to support a larger population of local youth, ultimately meeting a critical community need.

Putting Our Tools to the Test

The Youth Transition Center, which includes 64,000 square feet of new building area and 68 beds, was contracted as a progressive design-build project with a stipulated maximum budget. When complete, the project will connect youth with critical mental health, education and vocational resources.

As the YTC design advanced through the progressive design-build process, the County obtained previously unanticipated funding for a much-needed fifth housing unit. This addendum, which required development of an entirely new section of the site, added approximately $80 million to the original $109 million budget.

The challenge? Although the owner had secured the funding, local code regulations limited any change order to 10% of the original contract value. To proceed, the owner divided the project into two phases. Balfour Beatty then allocated $11 million of the added scope to a Phase 1 and deferred the remainder to a future Phase 2.

Thanks to Join, the project team didn’t have to go back to the drawing board to re-sequence the work.

“Join gave us a complete historical repository of all the added scope elements and their associated costs,” recalls Kristen. “We were able to review each decision, line by line, asking ‘What have we added to this job?’ and ‘What did we take out?’ to see what needs to be in Phase 1 and what needs to be in Phase 2.”

As a testament to our team’s track record of success aided by our proficient application of Join throughout design development, Balfour Beatty was recently awarded the $120 million Phase 2 of the project.

Join Keeps Value in Focus

When the project expanded significantly, Join helped the team make informed decisions for each phase.

Because the Independent Housing component introduced a new transitional housing program that required substantial operational coordination before implementation, it was strategically shifted to Phase 2. This allowed Phase 1 to focus on delivering a new replacement Education Complex, addressing urgent deficiencies in the County's existing educational facilities while preserving flexibility for future program expansion.

The team continued to leverage Join throughout the project to evaluate value-enhancing and cost-saving opportunities with the client, generating more than 700 Join items, including a dedicated YTC campus control room and kitchenettes in all living units. By identifying cost-effective solutions, the team maintained budget alignment while preserving flexibility to incorporate client-prioritized enhancements. The platform provided real-time cost transparency, enabling informed decisions and directing funding to the features that delivered the greatest value.

Milka Maslovaric, design manager for the YTC project, noted that by the conclusion of the design phase, the team had incorporated more than 40 enhancement items valued at over $8 million. This outcome highlights the value of understanding the cost impact of design decisions in real time, efficient decision-making and allowing the client to maximize value by directing funds to the scope elements that matter most to them.

Often, things go awry on a project when the client isn’t apprised of changes in the budget—particularly how their decisions impact the budget—and Join helps prevent that from happening,” attests Kristen. “Join helps drive informed project decisions.”

While the exact time and cost savings Join generated are difficult to calculate, the team estimates that they avoided at least three months of inefficient re-work that would have stalled workflows of the entire progressive design-build team, down to the trades.

Join also helped enhance and streamline communication and collaboration across approximately 40 members of the Youth Transition Center project team. Kristen intentionally ensured all partners, including the design and engineering team and major trades, were trained and provided with licenses.

When the going gets tough as it often does on capital construction projects, it takes the right team and the right tools to deliver. As this team has proven, a contractor’s open-mindedness and curiosity to innovate on the status quo is not only a hallmark of progress but also a leading indicator of success.