Professional Documents
Culture Documents
From Gutted
to Golden
Building a Modern
Office Space That Works
Table of
Contents
From Gutted to Golden: Building a Modern Office Space That Works.............................................................................1
Introduction....................................................................................................................................................................................................1
Overview.........................................................................................................................................................................................................2
About Honest Buildings............................................................................................................................................................................2
Before You Begin.........................................................................................................................................................................................2
Range of Tenant Improvements.............................................................................................................................................................3
Section 1: Getting Started.......................................................................................................................................................4
Select a Core Project Team..................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Assess Your Current Space..................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Identify Your Needs................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Section 2: Selecting Your Space............................................................................................................................................ 5
Review Listings.............................................................................................................................................................................................5
Hire a Broker..................................................................................................................................................................................................5
Start Touring Spaces and Narrow Your Search............................................................................................................................... 6
Navigating the TI Negotiation Process.............................................................................................................................................. 6
Hire an Architect..........................................................................................................................................................................................7
Walkthroughs and Test Fits...........................................................................................................................................................7
Develop a Preliminary Budget and Scope...............................................................................................................................7
Examine Existing Conditions and Performing a Review of Basic Building Systems...............................................7
Paying for an Architect Pre-Lease........................................................................................................................................................7
Paying for an Architect Can Save you Money........................................................................................................................8
Section 3: Designing And Building Your Space................................................................................................................... 9
Hire an Architect (If You Havent Already)....................................................................................................................................... 9
Developing Plans.......................................................................................................................................................................................10
The Importance of Construction Documents.................................................................................................................................10
Gather Bids................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Finalize Your Budget................................................................................................................................................................................. 11
File Work Permits and Ensure Sign-Off From the Landlord..................................................................................................... 12
Construction................................................................................................................................................................................................ 12
Post Construction...................................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Move In.......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................................................................13
Helpful Terms.........................................................................................................................................................................................................14
2014 HONEST BUILDINGS, INC.
From Gutted
to Golden
Building a Modern
Office Space That Works
Introduction
Overview
Honest Buildings (HB) is the worlds leading Connection Engine for Real Estate Projects. From architects to
engineers, contractors to technology experts, HB helps
you find and meet the perfect people for your real
estate projects, fast. We enable the real estate community to make the smartest decisions, one project at
a time. With an innovative suite of products and more
than $200 million in deal flow to date, HB is changing the way real estate connections are forged. For
more information, visit www.honestbuildings.com.
Range of Tenant
Improvements
Simple*
Moderate
Complex
Existing Condition
Move-In Ready
Whiteboxed
Raw Space
Size
1,000 - 5,000 SF
6-30 employees
25,000 SF+
100+ employees
Use profile
More advanced
space planning, with
dedicated work
areas and focus
on optimizing the
space use. Private
bathrooms, possibly
multiple kitchens
Highly customized,
special features.
Includes things like
private offices or oneof-a-kind amenities
* Even the simplest of buildouts can require a large amount of work and will almost certainly require you to
engage a variety of professionals in order to make the space work for you.
ASSESSING
YOUR NEEDS
SELECTING
YOUR SPACE
DESIGNING
AND BUILDING
YOUR SPACE
Getting
Started
35
1,850 sqft
# conference
rooms
1 8-person
conference room
and 1 6-person
conference room
350 sqft
Corridors and
common space
25% overage
550 sqft
30% buffer
825 sqft
Total space
desired
3,575 sqft
ASSESSING
YOUR NEEDS
SELECTING
YOUR SPACE
DESIGNING
AND BUILDING
YOUR SPACE
Selecting
Your Space
Review listings
To get a preliminary estimate of spaces you
like and how much they cost, you can use a resource like 42floors.com to search commercial
real estate listings in your area. This will give you
a rough sense of your rent expectations, and can
help you begin to evaluate different layouts.
Hire a Broker
Ready to get into the market and start looking at spaces? At this point, we strongly recommend retaining a real estate broker. A great
broker can make your real estate hunt more efficient and more effective in a number of ways.
As professionals with a good sense of the
Save you and your staff time because they negotiate and
monitor transactions for you
ASSESSING
YOUR NEEDS
SELECTING
YOUR SPACE
DESIGNING
AND BUILDING
YOUR SPACE
Type of
transaction
Definition
Advantages
Disadvantages
Most appropriate
situation
Turn-key
The landlord
creates a ready-tooccupy space using
an agreed-upon
allowance.
Tenant-controlled TI
allowance
The tenant is
responsible for
contributing the time
and resources required
to find vendors and
monitor the entire TI
process. They also
accept all of the
pricing risk.
ASSESSING
YOUR NEEDS
Hire an Architect
Once youve narrowed your search down to a shortlist
of spaces, an architect can walk through spaces with
you and assist you throughout the rest of the process.
SELECTING
YOUR SPACE
DESIGNING
AND BUILDING
YOUR SPACE
Developing a Preliminary
Budget and Scope
As you tour, youll see spaces in all different states of construction - some
will be pre-built, some white-boxed,
and others completely raw. The cost of your buildout will depend greatly on what type of space you
choose. Fortunately, an architect can help you develop a preliminary budget for your different buildout options. This budget, while approximate, can still
provide a helpful starting point for internal decisionmaking and high-level decisions between spaces.
Although architects make a larger design fee from
2014 HONEST BUILDINGS, INC.
ASSESSING
YOUR NEEDS
SELECTING
YOUR SPACE
DESIGNING
AND BUILDING
YOUR SPACE
ASSESSING
YOUR NEEDS
SELECTING
YOUR SPACE
DESIGNING
AND BUILDING
YOUR SPACE
Hire an Architect
(If You Havent Already)
As outlined in the previous section, you may want
to retain the architect who performed your prelease work for the rest of your buildout process.
This is exactly what many companies do. But if
you did not work with an architect before signing
the lease, or if you would prefer to have a different professional perform the design work for your
buildout, now is the time to seek out proposals.
We suggest finding two to four architects whom
you think would be a good fit for your project. (More
than four choices is counterproductive, as much
time and effort is required to properly interview
and vet an architect.) In order to evaluate which
architects might be a good fit, we recommend
that you search for professional who have worked
on projects similar to your space, your desired
aesthetic, and your proposed budget. Honest
Buildings has a network of thousands of qualified
ASSESSING
YOUR NEEDS
Developing Plans
After touring the space and reviewing all requirements with your new architect, he or she will often
prepare a preliminary set of drawings. Drawings at this
stage might be limited to blueprint-style line drawings for simpler projects, and include 3D computer
renderings for more complex or larger projects.
Drawings will convey the general layout which
your architect is proposing, and help you understand
how various features of the space might affect your
preliminary budget. (That glass-box conference
room, for example, might not seem so crucial after
you review the cost of glass.) An architect will help
you work within your budget limitations and find
the layout which works best for your company.
After lease signing, it is helpful to return to
the space with your architect. Bring along the
proposed layout to get a sense of the location
and dimensions of spaces, location of walls, doors,
light fixtures, etc. After you approve the rough
layout, your architect will begin to prepare more
precise drawings which will be the centerpiece
of the projects construction documents.
2014 HONEST BUILDINGS, INC.
SELECTING
YOUR SPACE
DESIGNING
AND BUILDING
YOUR SPACE
The Importance of
Construction Documents
Construction documents are prepared by your architect, and are comprised of a set of drawings and
written instructions. These can be used by a General
Contractor (GC) to draft a complete proposal or bid
for the construction work. When preparing construction documents, architects will typically draw on the
expertise of multiple professionals, including design,
engineering, and expediting consultants. Again, the
more complex the buildout, the more consultants will
play a hand in the creation of these documents.
Constructions documents are essential to ensure that
a contractor has every piece of information needed to
bid on the project, schedule the construction process,
and complete it on time and within budget. Good
construction documents are not cheap to produce,
but they create savings over the life of your project.
In the course of preparing these documents, an
architect will consider every aspect of the project and
the progression of steps to complete it. In making these
considerations, an architect will anticipate issues and
help contractors avoid change orders. A change order
occurs when a contractor encounters an unexpected
obstacle or holdup that results in a deviation from
the original proposal. Change orders can significantly
increase the cost of construction, and a polished set of
construction documents will significantly reduce the
risk that change orders will occur during the build out.
Another option for reducing the likelihood of
change orders is called pre-construction, or pre-con.
During pre-con, you hire a GC to review early drafts
of the architectural drawings and make preliminary
cost estimates based on these plans. This realtime
feedback allows the architect to more quickly create
iterations of their plans, and reveals any issues related
to cost or feasibility before finalizing the documents.
Although GCs typically request a small hourly fee for
pre-con services, some will offer this work at no cost
(free-con) to improve their chances of winning your
business. Dont worry - you are not obligated to hire
a GC for your full project simply because he or she
delivered your pre-con services. Accepting bids from
a shortlist of quality GCs will ensure you find the best
price for your project, and is highly recommended.
10
ASSESSING
YOUR NEEDS
SELECTING
YOUR SPACE
DESIGNING
AND BUILDING
YOUR SPACE
Gather Bids
When construction documents have been
finalized, you should begin gathering bids
for the work. Requesting competitive bids
from multiple GCs will ensure that you receive a fair price, and enable you to make
a fair comparison between candidates.
To acquire multiple bids, start by
developing a shortlist of general contractors.
Honest Buildings can help you quickly
analyze thousands of professionals at no
cost to find candidates with significant
experience working on projects like yours.
After receiving the construction documents
and walking through the space, each of
the general contractors on your shortlist
should be able to provide a proposal in
5-10 business days. The more information
a GC is able to gather via construction
documents and the walkthrough, the
more precise his or her proposal will be,
with less room built in to accommodate
uncertainty or unforeseen issues. Request
that your architect join the walkthroughs to
field technical questions and provide you
feedback on the candidacy of the contractors
that are invited to bid. It is important
that project information and updates are
shared with the entire GC bid pool, so
that each proposal is drawing from equal
information and can be compared in kind.
ASSESSING
YOUR NEEDS
SELECTING
YOUR SPACE
DESIGNING
AND BUILDING
YOUR SPACE
Construction
Once you have secured the DOB permits and
approval from your landlord, your GC will
move a construction team into place.
As construction advances, two or three weekly checkins at the work site will help you understand the progression of the project, and answer unexpected questions that may arise. Your architect will be able to
manage the project from a high level, but there is no
substitute for being onsite and speaking directly with
the GC. This is also a good time to call an IT service
provider, who will ensure that the wiring installed by
your electrician is appropriate for your IT setup.
Post Construction
When your GC reports that construction is finished,
inspections will be performed by the Fire Department
and the DOB. Walk through the space with your GC to
make note of any work that has not been completed,
and pay the contractor after these issues are addressed.
When your space has been inspected, your local jurisdiction will issue you a certificate of occupancy.
Move In
Now that construction is complete and youve
obtained a certificate of occupancy, you can officially move into your new space! Oversized
ceremonial scissors and ribbon can be purchased on Amazon.com at a reasonable price.
Of course, you still need to install furniture, set
up computers and server rooms, and configure your
internet and phone lines. In addition, youll have
to advertise your move and notify all clients and
vendors of the new address. Once this is complete,
you can move any furniture, computers, and files
into your new, built-out office space. Be sure to plan
for all moving and IT costs in your initial budget.
12
Conclusion
13
Helpful Terms
Tenant Improvement (TI): Any construction or
renovations done on the commercial space prior to
move-in; synonymous with buildout and fit out.
TI Allowance: A negotiated sum a landlord is
willing to spend to customize space for the needs
of a particular tenant. For some spaces in need
of freshening up and minor renovations, this will
be enough to cover all costs. However, in a brand
new space the TI allowance is often insufficient to
complete construction, even with the most inexpensive
components. Additional construction expenses
are paid by the tenant. Note that this only covers
the cost of construction and not the furniture and
other funishes you will need before you move in.
Construction Documents (CDs): A set of documents
that includes all building plans, specifications,
and supporting paperwork. These are drafted
and compiled by an architect or interior designer,
and interpreted by general contractors. They are
usually necessary to receive bids from vendors
and obtain permits from local authorities.
Mechanics Lien: Contractors file this if they are not
paid, or not paid the correct amount. It gives them
rights over the leased party until it is waived.
14