The plans room: this information center for the construction industry provides plans and specifications in conjunction with a customizable Web site for the ease of the client.

• Author: Cutler, Debbie
• Position: Www.theplansroom.com

Say you own a mom and pop electrical shop. Or own a painting company. Or are a contractor who does roadwork. You work all day to bring in the bacon, and have little time during the day to see what projects are coming up for bid so you can ensure work well into the future.

The Plans Room has a solution.

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, general contractors, subcontractors and suppliers can log onto www.theplansroom.com and see a list of new projects and current projects out for bid, with the information updated in "real time." There are also options to see new projects since the last visit, apparent low bidders/contract awards, projects in a pre-bid stage, archived projects (past two years), projects on hold and more.

If they are interested in a particular project, they can print out specs and plans. And if their printer isn't big enough to handle plans (half-size printout is 17 inches by 22 inches), then they can order them online and get them directly from The Plans Room, which has an office in Anchorage and a library in Fairbanks. (Full sets of plans should be ordered from the issuing agency.)

"A lot of contractors are your mom and pop shops or owner-operator shops," said Mary Ditz, manager of The Plans Room. "They work all day long doing construction, drywall, electrical, you name it. Many times they want to do their bidding in the evenings. At 11 p.m. they are drinking cocoa, are in their pajamas, and log onto The Plans Room to get their information."

While they can't actually make a bid online, they can mark their intent to bid so other contractors, subcontractors and suppliers know they are interested in a project. They can track just the projects they are interested in, which will appear on screen in red, and in a special feature called "My Projects." Updates to projects can be e-mailed to members, if desired. The "My Deskpad" feature shows a five-day calendar of each member's activities online.

The Plans Room has been around since the early '80s and has four Anchorage employees. The office in Fairbanks is staffed by an Associated General Contractor employee.

"The Plans Room is an information center for the construction industry," said Ditz. "What we do is track all of the projects out for bid. Anything using public money, which would include school districts, housing authorities, State of Alaska, cities, and, of course, federal projects. We also work on tracking some of the larger private projects, like Home Depot, Lowe's...