A board vote in one week.
Vertexa’s board was choosing between two sites for its Southwest flagship and needed a reliable cost for each within a week. The Phoenix site came with an empty mall to demolish and a parking requirement that doubled the scope.
- 5 daysto price two competing sites
- 900parking spaces required by the city
- 115°Fsummer peaks on the concrete schedule
A conceptual estimate is usually a range wide enough to be useless. Vertexa needed a number its board could approve and a builder who would stand behind it when the design was finished.
Our estimators worked from a two-page brief and a site plan, drawing on cost data from 40 recent retail and parking projects in Arizona and Texas.
A real number, early.
We priced the Phoenix scheme from our own historical costs, then kept the estimate live as the architect’s design developed.
- 01
Price from history
Unit costs from 40 comparable projects gave a five-day estimate within 3% of the later 50% design check.
- 02
Precast the parking
A precast structure instead of cast-in-place cut four months from the parking schedule and avoided summer pours.
- 03
Reuse the slab
Testing showed 60% of the old mall slab could stay as the store’s floor, saving demolition, haul-off and new concrete.