Delivery method
Design-Build Electrical Contracting
One contract covers the electrical design and the installation, so the utility application and the service equipment submittal start while the floor plan is still moving.
Design-build puts the electrical design and the installation under one contract with us. The reason it pays off on an electrical scope has nothing to do with drafting speed. It is that APS and SRP each run a formal, multi-step construction process before anyone energizes anything, and APS will not let a commercial meter enclosure be manufactured until it has reviewed the submittal. Under one contract those two clocks start at concept rather than after award.
One contract, and what it actually changes
In design-bid-build, an engineer draws the electrical, the set goes to bid, several contractors price the same sheets, and the utility application starts after somebody wins. It is a clean sequence and a slow one, because the two longest lead items on the job are the last to start.
Design-build reorders that. We hold the electrical scope from concept through energization, so the utility application, the service entrance drawings and the gear submittal run alongside the architectural set instead of behind it.
Neither APS nor SRP publishes a committed timeline for commercial new service. The APS construction-process page says only that "project timelines may vary by job complexity and current turnaround times." Anyone quoting you a firm number of weeks for a new commercial service is guessing.
So design-build does not buy a promise on the utility. It buys an early start on the parts of the schedule nobody in the contract controls.
The two clocks that set the schedule
The utility clock
APS takes commercial new service through its Construction Project Portal at build.aps.com. ESRM Section 200 lists eight items that open a request, among them the complete legal description, building square footage, estimated loads with the voltage and phase wanted, and site plans showing the desired meter location. ESRM 200.2-1 then sets a 22-step sequence in which APS engineers the system to the meter panel, reviews the service entrance drawings, stakes and inspects the trench, inspects conduit and pads, schedules its own crews, and energizes on receipt of city or county clearance. Nearly every one of those steps has a customer-side step in front of it.
SRP runs a parallel 22-step Request for Service in Section 1 of its Electric Service Specifications, lettered A through V, ending the same way: the customer obtains electrical clearance from the authority having jurisdiction, and only then does SRP energize the lateral and set the meter.
The gear clock
APS ESRM 302.9 requires every commercial meter enclosure to be submitted for review and approval before the equipment is manufactured. The submittal carries engineering and manufacturer one-lines showing the neutral-to-ground bond link and the neutral disconnecting means location, the applicable EUSERC page references, ampacity, voltage, phase, bus bracing AIC rating and the number of padlockable service disconnects. APS also keeps pre-approved equipment lists that constrain what may be installed at all.
SRP wants SES shop drawings emailed to shopdraw@srpnet.com. ESS Section 1 sets that trigger at panels greater than 225 amps that are not pre-approved; ESS Section 9 states 400 amps or larger. Those thresholds do not agree. We submit at the lower one and confirm with SRP Distribution Design rather than discover the difference during construction.
| Item | APS | SRP |
|---|---|---|
| Submittal route | Construction Project Portal at build.aps.com | Request for Service, ESS Section 1 |
| Commercial metering above 200 A | EUSERC-approved CT-rated meter enclosure required (ESRM 302.9) | Sockets rated 100 A and 200 A only; 400 A Class 320 is residential, so commercial above 200 A is CT-rated |
| Equipment reviewed before it is built | Every commercial meter enclosure, before manufacture | SES shop drawings to shopdraw@srpnet.com |
| Money before construction | Line Extension Agreement signed and all project costs paid in advance; refundable advances earn no interest | Contributions in aid of construction are generally non-refundable and earn no interest |
| Inspection before energizing | An APS inspection of the service entrance equipment in addition to the AHJ inspection | No energizing until the AHJ approves, or a Certificate In-Lieu is provided |
| Trench and conduit | Customer installs conduit from the service equipment to the transformer pad or junction box; contact APS before trenching | Customer or developer does all trenching, backfill, boring and conduit, or pays a contribution for SRP to do it |
What the owner decides, and when
Design-build moves owner decisions earlier. Each item below changes the design APS or SRP produces, so it has to be settled before the application is worth filing.
- Which utility serves the site. You cannot read this off a city name or a ZIP code. SRP lists the cities it serves all or in part, and APS serves portions of several of the same ones. Downtown Mesa has a municipal electric utility covering roughly 5.5 square miles, Electrical Districts No. 7 and No. 8 are chartered in Maricopa County, and GRICUA serves the Gila River Indian Community. A map check or a phone call settles it, and it comes first.
- Voltage, phase and service size. APS limits single-phase 120/240 V non-residential service to an 800 A service entrance; past that you take three-phase or install multiple 800 A sections within 10 feet of each other. SRP publishes its own SES sizing limits by phase, wire, voltage and overhead versus underground.
- Meter location. APS requires at least three feet of clear, continuously unobstructed working space at the face of the meter panel, and bans meters in 13 named location types, including inside a building without an acceptable meter room, basements, and carports that can later be enclosed.
- Transformer pad location. SRP requires 12 feet of clear working space at the front of a pad-mounted transformer, 3 feet at the sides and 18 inches at the back. A site-plan decision, not a field decision.
- Generation and storage, even as a maybe. APS requires a separate application whenever service equipment includes any connection or provision for an existing or proposed inverter or generator.
- Who trenches. At SRP the trenching, backfill, boring and conduit for underground service laterals are the customer's, or a contribution gets paid for SRP to do the work. That belongs in the concept budget, not in a change order.
Stamped drawings and the Arizona PE
We do not hold a professional engineer's seal in-house and we do not imply otherwise. Where a project needs sealed electrical drawings, we contract a licensed Arizona PE registered with the Arizona Board of Technical Registration and coordinate that engineer under our agreement with you. One contract for the owner, one party answering for the electrical scope.
The split of work is straightforward. We produce the design intent, the one-line, the load and fault current calculations, the panel schedules, the lighting layout and the specification of the gear we intend to buy. The engineer of record reviews it, adjusts what needs adjusting, and seals it. Phoenix's Annual Facilities Program is a fair guide to what such a package carries at minimum: a one-line diagram, load calculations and fault current calculations per the Phoenix Building Construction Code.
Two honest notes. That engineering cycle is real calendar time, and we schedule it at the start rather than discover it in week six. And it cannot be shortcut with Phoenix's Self-Certification Program: that program can issue a permit in one to five business days, but electrical engineers participate as peer reviewers, not as self-certifiers. Only architects, structural engineers, civil engineers and landscape architects may self-certify.
Where a study is the deliverable rather than a drawing set — short-circuit, coordination, arc flash — it runs as its own scope. See power system studies and engineering support.
Pin the code basis before anyone designs
Arizona has no statewide building code. Every municipality adopts and amends on its own schedule, and the Valley currently spans three NEC cycles at once. A design-build package carried from one city to the next without re-checking the adopted edition and its local amendments is a correction notice waiting to happen.
| Jurisdiction | NEC edition | Adoption |
|---|---|---|
| Phoenix | 2023 | Effective 1 August 2025, Ordinance G-7397 |
| Mesa | 2023 | Effective 8 January 2026, with the 2024 I-Codes |
| Glendale | 2023 | Effective 9 January 2026, with the 2024 I-Codes |
| Chandler | 2023 | Ordinance No. 5108, with the 2024 I-Codes |
| Scottsdale | 2020 | Effective 1 January 2023, with the 2021 I-Codes |
| Queen Creek | 2020 | With the 2021 I-Codes |
| Unincorporated Maricopa County | 2017 | Adopted 17 August 2022, with AZBO/MAG amendments |
| Gilbert, Peoria, Tempe | Confirm before design | Not verified here to a primary source. Get the edition from the city building department in writing. |
Local amendments matter as much as the edition. Phoenix, unincorporated Maricopa County and Glendale all amend NEC 250.118(4) so that EMT alone is not an acceptable equipment grounding conductor — a wire-type EGC is required. Phoenix and Glendale amend 334.10 to keep NM cable out of commercial buildings. Those two catch out-of-state design teams more reliably than anything else in the book.
Phoenix also deleted three sections of the 2024 IECC outright: C405.12 automatic receptacle control, C405.13 energy monitoring, and C405.15, which would otherwise require on-site renewable generation of at least 0.75 W per square foot of conditioned floor area. C408 commissioning is optional here. A budget carried from a jurisdiction that adopted the 2024 IECC straight is wrong in Phoenix, in the owner's favor.
The permit path
Phoenix commercial permitting runs through SHAPE PHX, which took on commercial plan review and inspections on 27 April 2026. The city's July 2026 turnaround report puts major commercial review (over 50,000 sf and more than $5 million) at a 30-day average against a 45-day goal, and minor commercial (under 5,000 sf or less than $350,000) at 33 days against a 25-day goal — small projects are currently the slow ones. A.R.S. § 9-835 limits an Arizona municipality to one comprehensive written request for corrections during substantive review, which is a useful lever when a review cycle sprawls.
Where design-build is the wrong call
It is not the right delivery method for every job, and saying so early saves everyone a week.
- When the owner wants competing lump sums against one fixed, fully engineered set. That is design-bid-build and it should be run that way. Design-build prices a scope and a performance basis, not a drawing set.
- When a design consultant is already under contract to the owner and the electrical sheets are nearly done. We would rather bid the work, or come in as design-assist for the last engineering cycle.
- When the switchgear is already purchased. If owner-furnished equipment is not on the serving utility's pre-approved list, or has not been through pre-manufacture review, no delivery method fixes that.
- Work at or above 600 volts on public rights-of-way, transmission and distribution lines, pole erection, and street lighting of all voltages. That scope sits under the A-17 classification rather than the commercial electrical classification.
- Same-day trouble calls. Design-build is scheduled, permitted work.
Good fits are new commercial and industrial buildings, service and distribution upgrades, site and underground work, and tenant improvements where the electrical scope is genuinely undefined at the start. See service and distribution and underground and site work.
Office hours are Monday to Thursday, 6:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and Friday, 6:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Get in touch with a site address, a rough load and a target energization date, and we can tell you whether design-build helps here or just adds a party.
Frequently asked questions
What is included in a design-build electrical scope?
We take the electrical from concept through energization under one contract. That means load calculations and the one-line, coordination of a licensed Arizona professional engineer for sealed drawings, the utility application and service entrance drawings with APS or SRP, the service equipment submittal and procurement, the permit application with the city or county, the installation, and the inspections through utility clearance. The owner gets one party answering for the electrical scope rather than an engineer and a contractor pointing at each other.
Do you have a professional engineer on staff?
No. We do not hold a PE seal in-house. When a project needs sealed electrical drawings we contract a licensed Arizona professional engineer registered with the Arizona Board of Technical Registration and coordinate that engineer under our agreement with you. We produce the design intent, the one-line, the load and fault current calculations and the equipment specification, and the engineer of record reviews, adjusts and seals the drawings.
How much faster is design-build than design-bid-build?
We will not give you a number of weeks, because the two items that control an electrical schedule are outside our contract. Neither APS nor SRP publishes a committed timeline for commercial new service, and APS states only that timelines vary by job complexity and current turnaround times. What design-build reliably changes is the start date. The utility application and the service equipment submittal open at concept instead of after bid award, and on a project where the gear has to be approved before it can be manufactured, that start date is usually the whole difference.
How do we find out whether APS or SRP serves our site?
By checking a map or calling, not by looking at the city name. SRP lists the cities it serves all or in part, and APS also serves portions of several of those same cities, so municipal boundaries are not utility boundaries in the Valley. Downtown Mesa has its own municipal electric utility covering about five and a half square miles, Electrical Districts No. 7 and No. 8 are chartered in Maricopa County, and GRICUA serves the Gila River Indian Community. This is the first item we settle on a new project because the standards, the cost rules and the submittal route all differ.
Can electrical drawings be self-certified in Phoenix to skip plan review?
Not by an electrical engineer. Phoenix's Self-Certification Program can produce a permit in one to five business days, but only architects, structural engineers, civil engineers and landscape architects may act as self-certification professionals. Electrical engineers participate in that program as peer reviewers. If your project uses self-certification, plan for the electrical sheets to move on the peer-review path rather than assume they are certified along with the building plans.
What does the owner have to pay before the utility builds anything?
It depends on which utility. For APS Basic General Service, which covers most commercial work, the applicant signs a Line Extension Agreement and pays all project costs in advance, before APS starts construction, and the project's site development plan has to be approved and recorded in the county. Refundable advances earn no interest and are reviewed against actual revenue at the end of year three and year five, with any unrefunded balance becoming a non-refundable contribution after five years. At SRP, contributions in aid of construction are generally non-refundable and also earn no interest. Either way this is a cash-flow item that belongs in the budget at concept.
Which NEC edition will our project be designed to?
Whichever edition the jurisdiction has adopted, and that varies by city. Arizona has no statewide building code, so adoption is local. Phoenix has been on the 2023 NEC since 1 August 2025, Mesa since January 2026, Glendale since January 2026, and Chandler by ordinance. Scottsdale and Queen Creek are on the 2020 NEC, and unincorporated Maricopa County is still on the 2017 NEC. We have not verified the current editions in Gilbert, Peoria or Tempe to primary sources, so on projects in those cities we confirm the edition with the building department in writing before design starts.
Get a price on this scope
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