What Is a 60% CD?

At 30 percent a reviewer can forgive a duct main drawn as a single line. At 60 percent that main should have a size, a route, and a ceiling zone, because the architect is drawing the reflected ceiling and the structure is placing beams. This is the submission where an overlay of architectural, structural, and MEP plans earns its time. If the team is still moving the core, the set is behind the label.

Federal and DOT "60% design" packages follow the same idea with their own checklists: design analysis further along, more plan sheets, draft specifications, and an updated estimate. The percentage is the contract’s percentage. A building 60% CD and a roadway 60% design both deserve a coordination review, and they do not contain the same sheets.

Plans, major elevations, building sections, and the primary wall sections should be underway with real dimensions. Door and room schedules are often started, not finished. Typical details for structure and envelope are drawn. Unusual conditions may still be keyed as "detail later" if the plan location is settled. The code sheet should show occupancy, construction type, and exiting with numbers, not placeholders.

Specifications should name the section list and carry edited Part 2 products for the systems that drive cost: structure, envelope, HVAC, electrical distribution. Part 3 execution and the long tail of Division 10 specialties can still be thin. A 60% project manual that is still an outline spec from design development is not a 60% CD.

Estimators can quantity a 60% set. That is new. At 30 percent they were still applying allowances and unit rates to diagrams. A 60% estimate that jumps usually means either the 30% set hid scope or the design grew. Value engineering belongs in this review, while details are still uncoordinated and product lists are not printed in the spec.

Cutting scope at 90 percent leaves stranded details and specification sections that no longer match the plans. Owners who want a price correction should demand it with the 60% comment log, with each cut traced to a sheet and a spec section so the 90% set is internally consistent.

Helpful 60% comments name a conflict: the beam and the duct occupy the same zone in the corridor, the door schedule width does not match the plan, the spec section calls for a roof the details do not draw. Each one can be fixed once and checked at 90.

A log full of spelling, title-block, and "add more dimensions" notes burns the review and hides the coordination misses. Those notes matter at 90 percent, when the set is about to be sealed. At 60, the question is whether the building as drawn can be built without a redraw.