Commercial Renovation Design Guide
UPDATED August 15, 2024 | AVERAGE READING TIME: 5-10 minForward
Are you embarking upon a design journey for a new business or enterprise? Or, are you looking at renovating the existing location of your business?
Our Why?
This is an online resource to help entrepreneurs understand their design journey for a commercial project. When it comes to renovating an existing business workspace or developing a new location there might be details you are unfamiliar with. We want to provide helpful insight at the onset of your business venture.
There are assumptions you might have about the building code requirements of your municipality.
We cover the questions businesses need to ask for a successful commercial renovation design project
These insights will help you plan your budget.
You will learn the key factors that affect your timeline for opening your doors to the public.
Start your design journey with your eyes wide open to what your challenges will be with your unique to you business. We know it is exciting to start a business or change an existing space, and we want you to be successful.
Key Points Covered:
Renovating a commercial space is called a Commercial Tenant Improvement (CTI) and is planned by interior designers based upon the municipal jurisdiction your project is based in.
CTI’s can be complicated for business owners, especially when you are busy and have never renovated a commercial space before. Careful planning and creativity can bring value to a renovation of a commercial space for a restaurant, office, store, or medical clinic.
There are many stages to the process. It is important to prepare for the phase where construction happens. This is the most expensive part, and costs can easily add up when mistakes happen.
Renovating a commercial interior like a restaurant is not as easy as it appears on television reality shows. There are a myriad of factors to consider, restrictions to design around, and building elements that can not be changed.
Finally, there are access restrictions, scheduling constraints, and accommodation issues during the renovation to figure out.
Articulated has completed over 400 projects in its history, and that means we have some tips and tricks that every business owner should be aware of before starting. In this article we aim to provide business owners with tips to simplify the design journey and build (or improve) on the viability of a commercial space for commercial interior design in major cities across Canada:
The tips we will cover in this article:
Review your Lease details
Obtain copies of building plans on-file
Compare the existing to plans on-file
Changes to occupancy type
Hire a designer before lease negotiations
Negotiate leasehold improvement allowances
Hold onto that grand opening date;
What are the top 5 things a designer will need to know before they start your project?
Hire an NCIDQ Certified Interior Designer
Your interior designer will need consultants
Involve workers early on in the design process
Changing structure is costly
Be cautious about changing outlets and lighting
Be cautious about changing plumbing fixture locations
Be cautious about altering ventilation
Changing sprinkler locations is costly
Plan in modular units
Cold shell verses warm shell interior
Consider an integrated design approach
Design with accessibility first
Don’t assume a quick turn around
20+ Tips and insights for a Successful Commercial Renovation
Signing your lease and the conditions you are agreeing to are an important part of your journey. You could be making assumptions about the site’s suitability for your business goals that might need further investigation. Each tip listed above will broken down in extensive detail. Understanding these fundamentals will not only simplify your process with us. It will simplify your journey for a successful project for your enterprise.
So dive into our design guide for commercial renovations and get your pencils out!
What’s the objective of these first 3 tips?
As the tenant, you should be aware of any details affecting the viability of your project. Further research might be needed to determine if the Building Inspection Officials will require that you address non-code compliant issues as a part of your plan.
Design 101: Building Inspection Officials will determine that your project site is code compliant and deemed safe to open to the public.
Before you apply for your building permit or apply to open your business you should be aware of any of these liabilities that you signed-up for. These can be a valuable part of your negotiations for the lease. We believe you should not incur additional costs fixing a previous tenant’s non compliant issue. Everyone has a budget and timeline, and we respect this which is why we created this evergreen resource about commercial renovations.
This specific insight is about setting up the foundation for your business to succeed, and comes from years of discovery calls with business owners.
The lease details might seem boring compared with branding and menu planning. Yet these details can affect:
What you will require to design the space to legally open to the public?
How long the renovation will take?
The BIG question: Will there will be unexpected COSTS ? We have more $$$ tips coming…
We encourage you to consider these factors as you negotiate with your landlord so that you do not incur unexpected expenses associated with you taking control of the lease.
We have a few more tips below with regards to leases
Are their additional factors to consider?
In British Columbia, Part 3, 6, 7, 8 and 10 of the B.C. Building Code applies to the inside of the CRU but also B.C. Fire Code, B.C. Plumbing Code and Canada Electric Code. Additionally, when a commercial space is over 470 square metres (5059 square feet), has had an exterior alteration, or it was previously designed by a Registered Architect, it will also require the services of an AIBC Registered Architect, but again the interior designer can coordinate with them on your behalf.
Some important go / no-go tips on building systems:
Some important interior planning factors:
We’re eager to help you get started!
First and foremost our job is to ask questions, so that we can design something achievable meeting the goals of your business.
There are many aspects to building a business when you renovate a commercial space. Depending upon the type of business there are many ways a qualified designer can provide guidance. Beyond the assumptions upon when a business can start operating, they can improve staff efficiency and end user engagement in both the space plan and finish selections.
Below are images from a 20,000 square foot commercial cold shell tenant improvement in the municipality of New Westminster. This is at the early stages where the building developer has just granted us access to the second floor space with the client. We were onsite confirming the plans on file with the city. The building had yet to pass occupancy for the entire structure. So we are also verifying the contract details before ownership will be transferred to the business who purchased this strata unit. Consulting at this stage of project allows us to verify the site conditions for when construction starts.
How much does it costs to renovate a commercial space?
Cost assumptions for commercial tenant improvements will vary greatly across regions, and particularly across the Lower Mainland of B.C. There are 3 levels of cost assumptions: (1) base level; (2) medium level; and (3) high level. The figures we present below are based upon current market conditions in Vancouver BC, but note that 2020-2022 (and likely beyond) has not been “financially kind” to the interior design & construction industry so costs have indeed risen 10-30%. This is reflected in the figures below.
The cost assumptions we list above are not absolute but they are some guidelines for entry. The actual costs will vary greatly across regions, market conditions, quality and level of involvement needed from us.
Consult with us before you start
We recommend business owners consult with us before they lease. A valuable service that qualified interior designers provide pertains to pre-design services. These services gather information on your business needs, sector, occupants, workers, and revenue objectives with the exclusive purpose of understanding the size and scope of your design needs, sometimes referred to as a “feasibility study.”
There are a few reasons why this is important:
No one likes to pay for an empty location for a year while the planning and construction is implemented and this will be costly to your community, your customers, and your bottom line.
You don’t want a stop work order to be issued on a project for issues that could have been identified and accomodated in the design phase. Stop work orders are issued to address unnecessary risks and poor judgement decisions that will result in additional delays while work is paused for months at a time, adding costs and possibly incurring fines. To correct a Stop Work Order will require additional professional services and fees that are often more than 20% higher had the business owner performed due diligence.
Pre-design services are programmatic concepts, meaning we do the thinking and analysis of a physical environment before design is considered. So that your budget is accounted for. These six critical areas we can assist with are:
Concepts. Identifies the design problem and the possible avenues of solutions to consider.
Relationships. Identifies the connection of adjacent activity areas and zones, rooms and spaces to each other.
Criteria. Identifies the area needed, public/private, needs, equipment, and considerations of spaces before designing and lists a circulation factor resulting in a total ideal gross floor area required.
Codes. Identifies the building codes, health authority approvals and guidelines that will affect the design of the space.
Fit. Plans preliminary arrangements of groups of activity centres together, such as table arrangements in a restaurant or work desks in a corporate workplace.
Recommendations. A list of recommendations and considerations that guide you on your quest for a commercial space.
We cannot emphasize enough that the careful analysis and interior planning of your commercial space before you even sign a lease is extremely valuable. The costs for this service will range anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000, depending on the complexity and the time involved.
Conclusion
There are a variety of ways working with a qualified designer can provide value to your business. Based upon years of conversations with business owners we created this tip list to address some of the most common assumptions people might make no matter whether it is a restaurant, wellness clinic, dental office, café or retail storefront. Then there are the efficiencies we can provide to the team behind your business and your end user’s experience.
Let’s get started.