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.
Select-Service Hotel Renovation (Example)
This is an example project, not a finished job. It shows the shape of the hotel work we take on so this page is not empty on day one. Replace it with a real pr…
Read the article →Retail shells and tenant build-outs that open on the lease date
Walk a strip center three months before grand opening and you can tell which tenant spaces are going to make their dates. The ones that will are the ones where…
Read the article →Apartment construction and unit turns: how the work really runs
The leasing office had already signed twelve residents for the first building before the parking lot was paved. That is the reality of multifamily work: the mo…
Read the article →Picking a general contractor in Houston: what to ask first
The proposal in your inbox gives you a number and a start date. It does not tell you who will be standing in the parking lot at six in the morning when the con…
Read the article →Ground-up hotel construction: from dirt to the first guest
The first night a hotel sells a room, somebody from our company is in the lobby watching the front desk check people in. That is the finish line we build towar…
Read the article →Office build-outs and TI work, planned around your move-in date
The lease says rent starts on the first of the month. The furniture truck is booked for the week before. Somewhere between those two dates, the ceiling grid ha…
Read the article →Warehouse and industrial building construction across Texas
Stand on a raw industrial site in Harris County after a hard rain and you learn what the job is really about. The building is the easy part. The water, the cla…
Read the article →Dental and medical office build-outs: planning the space right
The first question we ask a dentist or a physician is not about the finishes. It is when the first patient is scheduled. That date sets the schedule backward…
Read the article →Building a restaurant: what to know before the lease clock starts
The day a restaurant lease is signed, the opening date is already fixed and the money starts running against it. Rent abatement has an end date. Staff have bee…
Read the article →Hotel and apartment renovations while the property stays open
At seven in the morning on an occupied hotel floor, the first thing we check is not the drywall. It is the hallway: is the plastic wall up, is the carpet runne…
Read the article →Reading a commercial construction bid line by line
Lay three bids side by side and the eye goes straight to the totals. We have sat on the owner's side of that table, and the totals are the least useful thing o…
Read the article →Keeping a commercial build on the date: what actually works
The schedule that gets printed at kickoff and pinned to the trailer wall is not the schedule that opens the building. The one that opens the building is the th…
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