01
The two approval chains ran in series
Landlord review finished, then plan check started, and the two waits added up instead of overlapping. Control: both are released in the same week, on one schedule.
We deliver tenant improvements and commercial build-outs.
A build-out runs against a lease, not a mood board. The work letter, the building’s own rules and a rent commencement date are the constraints. The schedule is the deliverable.
- Scope
- Office, retail, medical, restaurant and light-industrial build-outs and refits
- Where
- Reno, Sparks, Carson City and the county towns
- Read first
- The lease, the work letter and the building standards, before we price it
- Permits
- We prepare the set, submit it, and meet the inspector
- Talk to us
- (775) 200-0648, Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM
01What a build-out actually is
Half the scope is already written, and it is not written by you.
Before a plan is drawn, three documents decide most of the job. The delivery condition says what the landlord hands over: a bare shell with a slab and a deck above it, a space someone else left behind, or something between. The work letter splits the scope: what the landlord builds, what you build, and what the landlord contributes toward it. The building standards say which ceiling, which door, which lighting and which control system you are allowed to use, whatever you had in mind.
We read all three before we price anything, because a bid drawn against the wrong split is not a bid, it is a future argument. What comes out of that reading is a scope document written in the same terms as your lease: line items, allowances, exclusions, and the items that belong to the landlord. When your lease, our contract and the drawings describe the same build-out, the rest of the job is execution.
02Somebody else’s building
The neighbours stay open, and the building has rules about you.
Most tenant improvements happen inside a building that is still running. There are hours when noisy work is allowed and hours when it is not. There is one freight route, one elevator, and a loading window somebody else also booked. There is a property manager who wants to know which crews are on site, and a life-safety system that cannot simply be switched off because a duct is in the way.
Those constraints are not obstacles to be discovered week by week. They are inputs to the schedule, collected during pre-construction and written into it: which trades work after hours, where dust separation goes, how the corridor gets protected, and who tells the tenant next door before the loud day rather than during it. Where your own business has to keep trading through the work, the build gets phased so there is always a usable, exit-served part of the space, and you know on day one which weeks are the difficult ones.
03The sequence
Eight phases, and the artifact you hold at the end of each one.
A build-out has two approval chains, the landlord’s and the jurisdiction’s. They run at different speeds.
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01
Lease, work letter and site walk
We read the documents, walk the space with them in hand, and record what is actually there against what the delivery condition claims. You get a scope split and an exclusions list
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02
Test fit and programme
Headcount, workflow, storage and front- and back-of-house laid onto the real column grid and the real exits, so the plan fits the building rather than the brochure. You get a dimensioned test fit
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03
Design and construction documents
Partitions, ceilings, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, data and finishes coordinated into one set, with accessibility resolved on the drawing. You get a coordinated permit set
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04
Landlord approval and permit submittal
The set goes to the landlord and to the reviewing department in parallel, because running those two waits in series is how a rent commencement date gets missed. You get a landlord approval and an issued permit
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05
Contract, long leads and mobilisation
A line-item contract with draws tied to milestones, long-lead equipment released, and the building’s access and hours agreed before a crew arrives. You get a signed contract and a dated schedule
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06
Demolition and rough-in
Protection and dust separation first, then demolition, then framing, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection and low voltage, inspected before anything is closed. You get passed rough-in inspections
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07
Ceilings, finishes and fixtures
Drywall, ceilings, flooring, millwork, glazing, paint and casework, sequenced so no trade is working over a finished surface. You get a finished, cleaned space
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08
Sign-off, punch and handover
Final inspections and whatever occupancy sign-off the jurisdiction requires, then a walk-through with the landlord and with you. You get a signed punch list and a close-out package
04Above the ceiling
Tenant improvements go wrong in the space between the ceiling and the deck.
Duct, sprinkler branch lines, structure, conduit, data trays and the tops of partitions all want the same few inches, and none of them are drawn by the same person. Coordinate that zone on paper and the ceiling goes in once. Skip it and a partition gets built, a duct arrives, the duct wins, and the partition comes down.
The other decision made up there is which partitions run to the structure above and which stop at the ceiling: a question about sound, smoke and what the drawings require, not about how much drywall anybody wants to hang.
05What goes wrong
Six ways a build-out slips, and where the control sits.
02
The work letter was never reconciled
Two documents describe the same scope differently and nobody compared them until an invoice arrived. Control: the split is written down before pricing is issued.
03
Long-lead equipment released late
Switchgear, rooftop units, storefront glazing and custom millwork run on their own calendars. Control: the schedule is built backwards from the longest lead.
04
The existing space was not what the drawings said
An as-built that was never as built: a beam, a shaft, an abandoned line. Control: an existing-conditions survey before design, and a written provision for what turns up later.
05
Accessibility solved on site
Clearances, routes and restroom layouts fixed with a tape measure after framing is up. Control: resolve them in design, when the fix is a line rather than a wall.
06
Nobody owned the building’s rules
Work hours, freight access and notice requirements discovered a trade at a time. Control: collected in pre-construction and written into the schedule.
06Schedule and money
The date on the lease is the only deadline that matters.
Every commercial build-out is scheduled backwards from a date somebody already signed. We take that date, subtract the approvals, the plan check, the long-lead releases and the inspection sequence, and show you where the start actually has to be. That includes the case where it has already passed, which is worth knowing in the first week rather than the ninth.
The money follows the same logic. Draws are tied to milestones you can look at, and where the landlord is contributing an improvement allowance our draw schedule is written to line up with how that allowance is disbursed under your lease. Changes are priced and signed before the work happens, with the reason recorded, because on a leased space it matters later who asked for it. We publish no square-foot figures: build-out cost is driven by delivery condition, mechanical scope and finish level, and a number that ignores all three is a guess with a decimal point.
07Questions
Three questions tenants ask before a build-out starts.
Contracts, draws and change orders in general are answered on the services overview. These are about leased space.
It varies by lease, and the lease wins. Most allowances are reimbursed against documented progress rather than paid up front, and some are released only after specific sign-offs. We read that section before we price the job so the draw schedule in our contract lines up with the disbursement conditions you already agreed to, instead of leaving you to fund the gap between them.
Usually, and it is a design decision rather than a favour. The space gets phased so the trading area always has its own exits, its own separation from the work, and its own path for customers and deliveries. Phasing costs schedule, so we price it as its own line item and show you what staying open is actually worth against finishing sooner.
Earlier than most tenants expect, because the first two waits are not construction. Landlord approval and plan check both run on calendars nobody in this conversation controls, and long-lead equipment runs on a third. We schedule backwards from your date through those three, and if the arithmetic says the date is not reachable we tell you that at pricing rather than at framing.
09Start a conversation
Send us the lease and the space. We will send back the schedule it implies.
The first conversation is not a sales call. It is us reading the delivery condition, the work letter and your date, and telling you what has to happen in what order to reach it.
Fastest way to reach us
(775) 200-0648
Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. A person answers, and it is somebody who has been on a job site. The form goes to the same place, one business day behind the phone.
Request received.
We will call you back within one business day to walk the space. If you need us sooner than that, call (775) 200-0648 now. Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.