Reedy Creek - ePermitHub

Transformed their business from Bluebeam file reviews to 100% digital plan review with the Digital Plan Room.

Reedy Creek Improvement District

The District quickly transitioned from Bluebeam to fully integrated digital plan review with the implementation of ePermitHub Digital Plan Room.

Overview

Reedy Creek Improvement District the sole regulatory body for Walt Disney World, spans across two counties in Central Florida, Orange and Osceola, and manages municipal services for 47-square miles of land. The district handles more than 8,000 permits with more than 17,500 plan reviews annually, with an average open permit value of $3+ billion. It contains over 40,000 hotel rooms and hosts an average annual attendance of 63 million guests in parks alone, with approximately 250,000 guests on property on any given day

The Challenge

The District faced several challenges that prompted the need for an integrated solution for electronic plan review. Some of the main challenges were:

Automated error and requirements validation of all plan files & supporting documents at submission, reducing the number of bad files submitted and resulting in less time spent troubleshooting with customers.
Collaborative issue resolution embedded in their citizens portal, improving communication between the District and its customers.
Cumbersome process to create approved job copy
Inefficient narrative-based customer communication

The Solution

ePermitHub’s Digital Plan Room was chosen by Reedy Creek Improvement District for its ability to address their business challenges. The auto-validation of plan files and supporting documents at submission eliminated the need for staff to spend time troubleshooting with customers, as the system automatically checks for validation issues and provides specific instructions for successful submittal. The collaborative issue resolution functionality allowed customers and district plan reviewers to communicate and respond to issues online, reducing the number of plan reviews and improving communication and efficiency. Additionally, the sheet versioning and automatic slip sheeting feature allowed the District to easily compare previously approved sheets with new plan modification requests, streamlining the approval process and allowing for automatic reconciliation of approved job copies. Overall, the Digital Plan Room provided specific features that addressed the District business challenges and allowed them to work more efficiently and collaboratively with their partners at Walt Disney World.

Implementation Challenges

After identifying ePermitHub’s Digital Plan Room as the best solution to address their key business challenges, Reedy Creek Improvement District proceeded with its implementation. The implementation process involved extensive consultation with various stakeholders, including Walt Disney World and several architecture, engineering, and contractor (AEC) firms that regularly work with the district.

The implementation process was not without challenges. The District’s complex development environment and large volume of plan review revisions presented unique implementation challenges that required careful planning and execution. An entirely new way to handle revisions after permit issuance had to be created for the district to be able to process dozens of revisions per project in parallel, while still being able to have a full view of the entire project. Seamless integration between the Digital Plan Room and the District’s permitting system was key to allow for easy intake of revisions.

Generating the large amount of interim approved sets that they need to keep construction flowing at Walt Disney World was another challenge for the district. Before the Digital Plan Room, district staff would spend upwards of 10 minutes per simple revisions to create approved copies with Bluebeam. For the very large projects that the district typically oversees in conjunction with Walt Disney World, finding, merging, extracting and stamping the appropriate sheets from PDF files for job copy creation using Bluebeam could take up to 4 hours for each set. Tracking and archival of all these different sets for historical purposes was also a big problem for the district. The Digital Plan Room solution and tight integration with the permit system of record offer the right level of automation to save hundreds of staff hours that used to be spent in document manipulation and not on the District’s core tasks of regulating and approving construction.

With ePermitHub’s support and guidance, the District was able to overcome all the challenges that were presented and successfully implement the Digital Plan Room. The implementation of the Digital Plan Room has allowed the District to work more collaboratively with its Disney partners and significantly increase efficiency and cost savings. The solution has also positively impacted the District’s customer communication by providing a more efficient and streamlined feedback process.

The Results

The implementation of the ePermitHub Digital Plan Room has resulted in significant improvements for the District. Here are some of the benefits they have experienced:

Auto-validation of all plan files & supporting docs at submission, reducing the number of bad plan files submitted and resulting in less time spent troubleshooting with customers.
Collaborative Issue Resolution embedded in Accela Citizen Access, improving communication between the District and its customers.
Automated Sheet-Level versioning, creating a “Single-Source-of-Truth” for all plan revisions and reducing the amount of time spent managing multiple approved job copies.
Faster permit turn-around time, which has greatly increased due to the integration of the Digital Plan Room and changes made to application submittal requirements.
Design Professionals can now start the permitting and plan review while the contractor selection process is taking place, allowing for a more efficient process.

The ePermitHub Digital Plan Room has been a game-changer for the District, allowing them to streamline their permitting process and work more collaboratively with their Disney partners. The solution has addressed many of their business challenges, resulting in faster permit turn-around times, improved communication, and a more efficient process overall. The success of the project serves as a model for other agencies in large metro areas with complex development environments.

Furthermore, the system’s automated workflows and self-service options have reduced the need for manual processing steps, freeing up staff time to focus on other important tasks. The Digital Plan Room’s integration with the District’s permitting software has also enabled seamless tracking and processing of plan modifications, eliminating the need for back-of-house manual steps and reducing review cycles.

Overall, the ePermitHub Digital Plan Room has transformed the District’s permitting process, providing a more efficient and collaborative solution that addresses their unique business challenges. The success of this project has not only improved the process for the District, but also serves as a best-practice model for other permitting agencies facing similar challenges in complex development environments.

ePermitHub is the first technology vendor to partner with Accela and Autodesk to offer the Digital Plan Room, a mutually beneficial solution for both government and the construction industry.