Auto dealership build and renovation costs: what sets the number

The manufacturer's image manual is the first document we ask for on a dealership job, before the survey and before the drawings. It tells us the showroom glass, the tower element, the exterior panels, the floor tile and the customer lounge finishes, and it tells us most of what the building is going to cost before an architect has drawn a line.

The image program sets the ceiling and the floor

Nearly every brand requires its dealers to build to a facility standard, and the standard is specific. Tall glazed showroom fronts. A branded entry element. Aluminum composite or specified metal panels. Polished porcelain floors in the display area. Specified lighting levels over the cars. Those are not optional and they are not the cheap versions of each material, so the value engineering that works on a generic retail box mostly does not apply. What we can do is manage how the standard gets built: sequencing the glazing package early because it is long-lead, coordinating the panel system shop drawings so the field fit is clean, and keeping the interior finish schedule tight to the manual so the brand's inspection passes the first time.

Showroom, service and the parts nobody photographs

A dealership is three buildings sharing one address. The showroom, with its long-span structure, its glass and its finish standard. The service department, with a slab designed for lifts, trench drains, oil and fluid handling, exhaust extraction, compressed air, and electrical for the diagnostic equipment. And the support spaces: parts storage with its mezzanine, the detail bays, the customer lounge, the offices. In our experience the service side is where budgets get surprised, because the equipment plan lands late and each lift, each drain and each air drop is a line item. We ask for the equipment layout in preconstruction and price from it.

The site is bigger than the building

Display lot, customer parking, service drive, employee parking and delivery access can add up to more paved area than the building covers, and the lot needs lighting bright enough to sell cars at night, which is a real electrical scope. Drainage on that much hard surface means detention, and the jurisdiction will have an opinion about it. Our excavation and concrete crews carry that work, and it deserves the same early attention as the showroom glass.

Renovating to a new program

When the brand updates its image, an existing store often has to follow, and a renovation to a current standard can involve removing the old facade, reframing the entry, replacing the storefront, reworking the showroom floor and refinishing the customer areas, all while the dealership keeps selling and servicing cars. Phasing that work so the sales floor and the service drive stay open is the skill. We build temporary walls, shift the customer path, work nights on the loud parts, and keep a principal of the company on site to make the daily calls with the general manager.

Planning ranges, labeled as such

Owners ask for a per-square-foot number. Ours comes as a planning range with the site carried separately, and it varies by brand program, by scope (ground-up versus renovation), by how much service capacity is being built, and by year. The showroom and its glass sit at the top of the range, the service building in the middle and the parts and support areas at the low end. The range narrows the day we have the image manual, the equipment layout and the survey in hand.

The finish line on a dealership job is the brand's final inspection and the first customer walking through the new front door, with the owner of our company standing in the showroom that morning. Send the image manual, the site survey and whatever drawings exist, and we will put a planning number and an opening date next to them.