Remodeling - One building - many projects

[DaveP]

We're doing several remodeling projects in a large hospital building.
Each of the remodels will be a separate project, but they are all in one building.
At the moment, we've got a couple of copies of the base building model - one for each project.
we're trying to figure out some way to keep one master building model so we don't have to cut and paste as we finish each project.
Seems like Phasing would be our best bet for this, but here's the rub.
There's a client involved.
And whenever there's a client involved, you know the schedule is going to change. We may be working on the ER, Radiology, and Histology departments all at the same time, but we don't know which one the client is going to want first. They may say halfway through the ER part that they've decided Radiology is going to go out first. Then a month later, they change their mind & want the ER to be issued ASAP.
Make is hard to use Phases, since we can't change the order of the phases once they're set.
Also thought about linking in each project, but then we can't change a wall to Existing or Demo if its in a linked model.

Has anyone run into anything like this before?
TIA

[Clyne Curtis]

I am also very interested in the replies to this post as we are going to implement the same type of process on our campus. I am thinking that I will be able to set up each building/floor as a central file and utilize worksets for the individual projects within the building. Does this sound feasible?

Thanks

Clyne

[Wes Macaulay]

It's really hard to break a project like this up into phases or linked files. How big is the project? If it's not going to be monster do the whole thing up in one file.

We've had similar projects and from the start we knew we had to do it all in one file.

And use 8.1

[DaveP]

Each floor is about a hundred sq ft. (Oops, make that 100,000)

Right now, we're only doing 2 floors, but this is probably 5 to 8 years of work. Eventually, it'll be all 8 floors. That's a big honking building. And its a medical facility, which are very dense buildings,


But, the main problem I see is that we can't really use Phases, because we don't know which phase comes first until after they've been worked on.