The Arizona School Retention Trust Issues Model Construction Contracts

By Kirk H. Hays


As part of its pre-paid legal services for Arizona school districts, the Arizona School Risk Retention Trust has issued model construction contracts specifically designed to meet the unique needs of Arizona school districts. The contracts are based on the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) widely used contracts but have been modified to reflect unique statutory and regulatory requirements applying to school districts, address Arizona specific laws and provide additional legal protections for owners that are not included in the standard AIA contract documents.


For standard Design-Bid-Build projects these contracts include:

• B101-2007 Agreement Between Owner and Architect
• A101-2007 Standard Form Agreement Between Owner and Contractor
• A201-2007 General Conditions

For Construction Manager-At-Risk projects these contracts include:

• B101-2007 Agreement Between Owner and Architect
• A121 CMc-2003 Agreement Between Owner and Construction Manager
• A201-2007 General Conditions

The B101 and A201 documents have been modified to address the unique needs of CM at Risk projects.

As part of its pre-paid legal services, the Trust also provides legal representation to school districts from the beginning of the contracting process. When a school district begins its solicitation process, attorneys can modify the Trust’s model contracts to meet the unique needs of the district and the project. These contracts can then be included in requests for proposals and bid solicitation materials. Legal representation is also provided for contract negotiations and to generate final contract documents for the project. This approach provides significant advantages to school districts over having their architects prepare construction documents because the attorneys can address legal issues outside the expertise of architects and it avoids conflicts of interest between the architects and the school district.

The Trust model contracts will be available for review to Trust members on the Trust’s website sometime in January. Questions about the contracts or specific provisions or requests for copies of the contracts can be addressed to Kirk H. Hays at khays@holmwright.com or (480) 961-0586.