Guide
Planning a Commercial Fitout? Start With These Questions
Before you get a fitout company involved, a handful of honest answers to these questions will save you time, budget and stress once construction starts.
Most of the stress in a commercial fitout doesn't come from construction itself — it comes from decisions that get made too late, or not at all, before construction starts. Before you call a fitout company, it's worth sitting down and honestly answering a few questions first.
What does your lease actually say about make good? Many tenants don't read the make-good clause closely until the end of the lease, by which point it's too late to plan around it. If you know from day one what condition you'll eventually need to return the space to, you can make smarter decisions about what you build now. See our commercial make good page if this applies to you.
What's your real budget range, not your hoped-for one? A rough per-square-metre number from a quick search online rarely matches what a specific space, in a specific building, with specific services constraints, will actually cost. A proper scope and proposal will always be more accurate than a guess — but it helps to walk in with a realistic range rather than a single fixed figure.
What's your hard deadline, and is it actually hard? A lease start date, an opening date already announced to customers, or a board presentation all create real pressure — but not every deadline is equally fixed. Being upfront about which dates are flexible and which aren't changes how a construction program gets built.
Does your landlord need to approve the works? Most commercial leases require sign-off on anything affecting base-building services, structure or common areas. Finding this out after design work has already started causes delays that are entirely avoidable.
Can the business keep operating during the works? For retail and hospitality in particular, staged works or after-hours scheduling can sometimes keep a space partially open. It's worth raising early, before a proposal is finalised, rather than assuming it either way.
Once you've got honest answers to these, you're in a much stronger position going into a design consultation. For the fuller, stage-by-stage version of this process, see our commercial fitout checklist.
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