Commercial tenant improvement projects fail to meet budget and schedule expectations more often when tenants and landlords come to contractors unprepared. These six items, provided at the outset, change how contractors scope, price, and deliver the project.
1. A Complete Set of Lease Obligations
Your lease defines what the landlord is responsible for, what the tenant is responsible for, and what work requires landlord approval. Contractors who receive the lease and the landlord’s work letter at the start of scope development give you a more accurate proposal than contractors scoping against verbal descriptions of responsibilities that turn out to be wrong.
2. The Landlord’s Base Building Drawings
As-built drawings of the base building, including mechanical, electrical, and structural plans, allow the contractor to understand what systems exist, where they terminate, and what the cost of connecting to them will be. Contractors pricing tenant improvement work without base building drawings are estimating. Contractors with the drawings are pricing. The difference affects proposal accuracy significantly.
3. The Permitting Jurisdiction and Known Requirements
Tenant improvement projects in commercial buildings require permits from the local jurisdiction. The permitting timeline and requirements vary significantly by jurisdiction and building type. If the building has previously received certificates of occupancy, the contractor needs to know from which jurisdiction and on what code version, as code compliance requirements for the TI scope depend on what the base building was permitted under.
The Associated General Contractors of America identifies permitting complexity and timeline as one of the primary schedule risk factors for commercial tenant improvement projects, with jurisdictions requiring full building code compliance review for tenant improvement permits adding 4 to 12 weeks to project timelines that tenants frequently have not budgeted.
4. A Realistic Move-In Date
The move-in date drives every schedule decision in a tenant improvement project. A contractor who knows the hard move-in date can design a construction schedule that works backward from it and tell you whether it is achievable. A contractor who learns the move-in date after mobilizing cannot.
5. IT and AV Requirements in Advance
IT infrastructure, data cabling, audio-visual systems, and security system requirements are among the most commonly added scope items during construction that could have been included in the original contract. These items affect electrical planning, ceiling heights, wall penetrations, and mechanical clearances. Providing them to the contractor before design development eliminates the most common change order category.
6. Furniture and Fixture Specs Before Construction Starts
Furniture dimensions, power requirements, and clearance needs affect floor box placement, lighting layout, and HVAC diffuser positioning. Providing furniture specifications before construction begins eliminates the ceiling, flooring, and electrical changes that result from discovering furniture-construction conflicts after construction is underway.
The Construction Management Association of America reports that tenant improvement projects where IT, AV, furniture, and fixture specifications are provided to the contractor before design development achieve change order rates 30 to 50 percent lower than projects where these specifications arrive during construction.
Takeaway
Commercial tenant improvement contractors produce better budget and schedule results when they have complete information at the start. The six items above are not nice-to-have. They are the inputs that determine whether a proposal is accurate and whether a construction schedule is realistic.
