Articles
Notes from the job site
What we have learned running renovations, build-outs and furniture installs: costs, schedules, contracts and the details that decide opening day.
Inside a commercial construction schedule: how the date gets held
Every schedule we build starts at the last line, not the first. We write the opening date at the bottom of the page, then work upward: the final inspection has…
Read the article →San Antonio build-out and renovation cost per square foot, 2026 guide
Six weeks was the number a restaurant group had in mind for new finishes in a space they had just leased off Loop 410. An electrical panel still running on ori…
Read the article →Dallas-Fort Worth build-out cost per square foot, 2026
Two tenants called about the same week last month, one leasing a suite in Plano and one leasing a comparable suite in Dallas proper. Same square footage, same…
Read the article →Austin build-out and renovation costs per square foot: 2026 planning guide
A build-out inside a newer shell near the Domain priced well under a similar scope inside a 1980s strip center off Burnet Road the same month, for close to the…
Read the article →The bid packet: what to gather before asking for a number
About half the bid requests that reach our desk are a single paragraph and an address. We price them anyway, but we price them with assumptions, and every assu…
Read the article →What to check in a commercial space before you sign the lease
We walked a second-generation restaurant space with a broker last spring, and the marketing flyer called the kitchen “ready to go.” The hood was there. It was…
Read the article →The pre-construction checklist to run before demolition day
We keep a habit before any job starts. We sit with the owner and ask one question first: what day does this building need to open? Everything else in pre-const…
Read the article →Open ceiling or drop ceiling: how to choose for a build-out
A tenant walked a raw shell space with us last spring and pointed straight up at the deck. The bar joists were still bare, and she wanted to know whether she c…
Read the article →GC or construction manager: which one should run your job
On our jobs the same team runs the site whether the contract calls us the interior contractor or the construction manager. The work in the field looks identica…
Read the article →Design-build or design-bid-build: picking the right path
The difference between the two delivery methods shows up on a Tuesday afternoon when the framer finds a duct that will not fit above the ceiling. Under one met…
Read the article →Retail Tenant Build-Out (Example)
This is an example project, not a finished job. It shows the shape of the retail work we take on so this page is not empty on day one. Replace it with a real s…
Read the article →Multifamily Unit Turns (Example)
This is an example project, not a finished job. It shows the shape of the multifamily work we take on so this page is not empty on day one. Replace it with a r…
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