Articles
Notes from the owner’s side of the job
What we have learned running renovations, build-outs and new construction: costs, schedules, contracts and the details that decide opening day.
Houston suburb commercial build costs per square foot, 2026
A cost per square foot for a job in Katy is not the cost per square foot for the same job in Pearland, and neither one is the number for a site inside the loop…
Read the article →What moves commercial cost per square foot in Fort Worth (2026)
An owner sent us a Dallas number for a Fort Worth site last year and asked why our estimate did not match. The answer was not that Fort Worth is more expensive…
Read the article →Apartment unit turn costs in Texas: what sets the number
Walk two vacated units on the same floor of a Houston property with the same floor plan and you can come back with two very different tickets. One needs paint…
Read the article →What drives the cost of a medical office build-out
Walk a finished medical suite and a finished law office side by side and the medical one will have cost noticeably more per square foot. The waiting rooms may…
Read the article →What a warehouse really costs per square foot in Texas
The first thing a principal of ours does on a warehouse site is walk the truck court, not the building pad. The pad is easy. The paving, the detention pond, th…
Read the article →What a restaurant build-out costs per square foot, and why
Stand in an empty restaurant shell and look up. If a hood is hanging there with a duct running through the roof, the build-out just got cheaper. If the ceiling…
Read the article →From raw acreage to move-in: how a residential development gets built
Stand on a tract the week the grading crew shows up and there is nothing to photograph: a pasture, a row of survey stakes, a silt fence. Eighteen months later…
Read the article →Custom home building: from your drawings to your move-in day
The framing was up, the windows were two weeks out, and the owner was standing in what would be the kitchen deciding whether the island should be eighteen inch…
Read the article →Fuel station and c-store construction: one site, one opening
On a fuel site the tank pit is the first hole and the last thing anyone wants to reopen. Everything about how we schedule a gas station and convenience store c…
Read the article →Mixed-use construction: several uses, one structure, one schedule
The coffee shop on the ground floor has a lease that starts in March. The apartments above it lease up on their own curve through the summer. The office suite…
Read the article →Certificate of occupancy: what stands between you and opening
The ribbon is ordered, the staff is hired, the furniture is in the lobby, and the doors stay locked. We have seen that week on other people's jobs. The buildin…
Read the article →Value engineering that keeps the design and moves the number
A budget review usually happens at a table with drawings spread out and one number circled in red. The owner asks where the money can come from. The wrong answ…
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