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, tells us more about the cost of the job than the floor plan does. Two suites on the same floor of the same building can price far apart because one had a tenant who left usable infrastructure behind and the other did not. The floor plan is what the tenant sees. The ceiling is what we price.

The shell you inherit

A first-generation shell, meaning raw space with no ceiling, no lighting and only a main mechanical trunk, needs everything built. A second-generation suite that the previous tenant improved may hand you ceiling grid, lights, working HVAC distribution and finished restrooms. That is a real savings when the old layout is close to the new one. It is a false savings when the new layout demands walls where ducts and lights were never meant to go, because reworking infrastructure sized for a different plan can cost more than starting clean. We verify what is reusable against the new plan before anyone counts on it.

Density, rooms and the mechanical load behind them

An open floor with a few conference rooms is less expensive per square foot than a plan full of private offices, and the reason is not the drywall. Every enclosed room adds a door, a return air path, its own lighting control, its own thermostat zone or diffuser, and more electrical drops. It also changes how the base building's HVAC handles the floor. A building sized for one occupancy density can fall short when a tenant packs more people into open workstations than the original engineer planned, and that shortfall is found either in pre-construction or in the middle of the job. We would rather find it first.

Modern office tenants need more power and data than most Texas office buildings were wired for a decade ago. Workstation circuits, conference room technology, a dedicated IT room with its own cooling, and access control all add up. The amenity rooms cost more than their size suggests: a break room with plumbing and a full appliance package, a wellness room, a lounge with millwork and specialty lighting. Our own millwork, drywall, tile, glazing and paint crews build those spaces, so we price them from our own labor rather than a subcontractor's markup.

Landlord rules and the building's calendar

The lease work letter and the building's rules set costs a standalone building never sees: after-hours work for anything noisy, freight elevator reservations, required base-building contractors for fire alarm or mechanical tie-ins, and a landlord review of the drawings. A build-out across two floors adds a connecting stair or elevator coordination. We read the work letter before we price, because a requirement to do all demolition after six in the evening changes the labor line.

A planning range and what it assumes

As a labeled planning range that varies by scope, building and year, a light refresh of a second-generation suite sits at the low end, a full build from a first-generation shell with a dense private-office plan sits at the high end, and most tenant work lands between the two. The range narrows once we have opened the ceiling, seen the plan and read the work letter. It narrows further once the move-in date is fixed, because the move-in date tells us whether the schedule needs overtime or a second crew.

The move-in date is the real deadline

An office build-out has a lease commencement behind it, and often a lease expiring somewhere else. Furniture arrives on a truck the week before move-in. Data cabling has to be terminated before the furniture blocks the floor. We schedule backward from the day people sit down at their desks, and a principal of the company is in the suite that week walking the punch list with the tenant's representative.

Send us the plan, the work letter and a photo of what is above the ceiling, and we will tell you where your number lands and what moves it.