Phases of commercial construction planning

They say failing to plan is planning to fail; this is true for most things, including construction. When the decision is made to embark on a commercial construction project, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and stressed. To mitigate these feelings, we find it’s helpful to break the planning process up into three broad categories: preliminary, bidding, and scheduling.

  • Preliminary

The first step of the preliminary planning is to decide what you need and what you want. Once you have made a clear distinction between the two, you can proceed with fine tuning the budget and timeline. Getting these two items right is incredibly important, as they will be the two main parameters your contractor will operate within.

You’ll also want to consider methodology in this phase. There are lots of options for how the building is built, and you’ll need to have a general idea of your preferred method.

  • Bidding

Now that you know what you need, how much you can spend, and when it all needs to be done by, you can start talking with contractors. Look for commercial construction companies who have been around for a while and have a reputation for completing projects on time and on budget. Get a few bids and see if your budget and timeline are realistic or if you need to readjust some of your preliminary planning. To avoid having to make adjustments, it can be helpful to bring in a construction company once preliminary planning has started.

  • Scheduling

Once you’ve officially hired a contractor to complete your project, you can start to work with them on scheduling the different phases of your project. There will most likely be a lot of logistics involved in this process, which is why it’s important to hire an experienced commercial contractor.

One thing to look for when making this schedule is transparency. A contractor who doesn’t let you know what they’re doing or when they’re doing it isn’t a contractor you want to work with. You don’t necessarily need to know every detail of what’s going on, but you need to have a broad overview when happening.