It is critical to provide pricing in a project’s infancy, ideally during the design phase, to ensure the client’s target construction budget is on track. Historical data proves if budgeting is not completed during design prior to contractors proposing final numbers, many hours of value engineering will be required, typically leading to a delay in the construction start. This additional time for the project team and negative impact on the construction schedule can be easily avoided.
Budgeting throughout pre-construction can be completed during conceptual, schematic, design development, and/or the construction documentation phases. Continually updating costs throughout each phase guarantees positive expectations with the client once final bid/construction documents are on the street for final pricing.
We pride ourselves in providing accurate, up-to-date estimates. We accomplish this by keeping track of current cost trends with labor and material pricing. With our vast database of general contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers, we keep the lines of communication open with our project team members to ensure we are working with the latest numbers. This also contributes to our success as owner’s reps with our management projects, as developing conceptual budgeting and tracking costs accurately during a project’s lifecycle is extremely critical to a successful project.
The pandemic has caused a number of labor and material cost increases, so the importance of pre-bid estimating cannot be stressed enough, particularly within this COVID-era commercial real estate market.
We have seen an uptick in budgeting opportunities within the last year, as most clients and design firms are not taking chances with the speculation of final numbers from contractors. We focus on just about every commercial project – from a new multi-story higher education building in southern NJ, a new park and recreational facility/center in Philadelphia, renovations to future manufacturing/office space at the Navy Yard, to a new ground up student dorm for the University of Pittsburgh, all which happen to be current projects for our estimating group.
Our estimating clientele include architects, engineers, facility managers, brokers, landlords, tenants, and developers. We enjoy helping our clients manage their budgets so they can start their projects on the right track!
