Articles
Materials, selection & how we build
Notes from the field on how we build: project guidance, material comparisons, and the occasional how-to for the trade.
What an office build-out costs in Texas: where the money goes
Before we price an office build-out we open a ceiling tile. What is above it, the condition of the ductwork, the lighting circuits, the sprinkler branch lines…
Read the article →What commercial space costs to build in San Antonio's suburbs (2026)
Drive north on Highway 281 past the county line and the permit office changes, the water provider changes, and the ground under the future parking lot may go f…
Read the article →DFW suburb construction cost per square foot: city by city (2026)
The bid for a gas station and convenience store in one north Dallas suburb came back with an impact fee line that did not exist on the same prototype we had pr…
Read the article →Building senior living and assisted living communities
The state surveyor arrived on a Thursday, a week after the fire marshal had signed off, and the building could not admit its first resident until both were sat…
Read the article →Distribution center construction: built around the truck court
Stand at the dock face of a working distribution building at six in the morning and you will understand the design in about a minute. Trailers backing in, fork…
Read the article →Five things to get answered before you sign a construction contract
The contract that lands in an owner's inbox the week before mobilization is usually forty pages, and the owner usually reads the price on page one and the sign…
Read the article →Building through hurricane season on the Texas Gulf Coast
Every June we pull the schedules for the jobs that will still be open in August and September and ask one question about each: will the roof be on? A building…
Read the article →Building a commercial build-out budget that holds
The budget that gets a tenant in trouble is almost never the construction number. It is the number that was never written down: the permit fees, the design rev…
Read the article →Five ways to tell your general contractor has the job under control
You can learn more about how a job is being run from twenty minutes on site than from a month of progress reports. The way the material is stacked, who walks o…
Read the article →Commercial build-out timelines: what sets the finish date
The calendar in our job trailer runs backward. It starts with the day the owner needs to open and works toward the first day of demolition. When an owner asks…
Read the article →Licensed and insured: what to ask for before your builder starts
We get asked for our certificate of insurance maybe once for every ten contracts we sign. The other nine owners took the phrase on the website at face value. M…
Read the article →Keeping change orders off a commercial project: an owner's playbook
The demolition crew opened a ceiling in a former restaurant and found a grease duct nobody had drawn, running the length of a space that was supposed to be a d…
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