Commercial Build-Outs in Chicagoland

What this covers

Interior build-outs

Taking a commercial space from shell or strip-out through to finished and ready to open.

Tenant improvements

Reworking an existing space for a new use, a new layout or a new tenant.

Counters and millwork

Stone-clad service counters, bars and built-in cabinetry, built and installed on site.

Flooring

Commercial-grade flooring, with the subfloor prep and transitions underneath it.

Drywall, framing and paint

Partitions and ceilings framed, hung, taped and finished, then painted.

Doors and glazing

Interior doors, frames and hardware, and the openings they sit in.

Recent commercial work

Cafe Tabeeb, Printers Row

A full interior build-out on the ground floor of The Cooper: the plasterwork, the marble service counter and espresso bar, the millwork, the lighting and the polished concrete floor. The first two frames are the same counter, part-built and then finished.

A marble cafe counter part-built, with the stone set and the surrounding millwork and floor still unfinished — The marble counter during the build. The stone is set; the curved end, the millwork and the floor are still to come.

A cafe service counter clad in veined purple and white marble, lit from beneath the lip, with a pastry case and espresso bar behind it — The same counter finished, in veined purple and white marble. A light cove runs the length of the underside, so the stone reads lit from within.

The finished cafe interior looking in from the door: the marble counter, a row of globe pendants, an arched mirror and planting — The room from the door. Counter to the left, the pendant run overhead, an arched mirror closing the far end.

HOTWORX Park Ridge

An infrared fitness studio in the Village Green Shopping Center. Plywood panels in an orange steel grid, cedar-clad rooms, large-format tile, lockers, signage. Shot on site.

Inside an infrared room: pale cedar lining, slatted heater panels along two walls, and a wall screen counting down to a session — Inside one of the infrared rooms, lined in cedar.

A bank of orange lockers numbered two to nine, beside a red key drop box and a cedar-clad wall — The locker bank, beside the key drop.

A washroom with large-format tile to mid-height under a gray painted wall, a wall-hung basin with black fittings and a mirror — Large-format tile and a wall-hung basin.

FX ZONE in brushed dimensional letters on a plywood and orange steel wall, under a red spiral duct — Brushed letters over plywood and orange steel.

A corridor running between cedar-clad sauna enclosures, with a red-painted washroom door on the right and rubber flooring underfoot — The corridor between the enclosures.

Both are on the projects page in full, along with underground pipework beside a commercial building. Roofing is taken on for commercial buildings too, and has its own page.

The sequence, and where it slips

Every interior build-out runs roughly this order, whoever is holding the contract. Delays tend to land at the handoffs rather than in the middle of a trade.

The lease, before the drawings. The work letter splits the build between landlord and tenant. Shell, as-is and white box have no standard definitions, so the only condition that counts is the one written into the lease.
Strip-out. Out comes whatever the new layout does not need. It is also the only honest survey the space ever gets: how flat the slab is, where the sprinkler main actually runs, what is behind a wall the last tenant closed up.
Layout. Walls chalked on the slab before a stud is cut. A door is easy to move while it is still a chalk line, and stops being easy once the walls are up, so this is the stage to walk the space and argue with it.
Framing. Partition height to the deck, and the fire rating, are settled here. Changing either after the ceiling closes means opening the ceiling again.
Rough-in. Duct, sprinkler, conduit, data and waste all run while the walls and ceilings are still open, and every finish trade waits behind them.
Inspection, before anything is covered. Rough work generally has to be seen before it is hidden. What gets asked for at this stage is cheap. The same request after close-up is not.
Close-up and ceilings. Drywall hung, taped and sanded, then the ceiling. Grid, sprinkler heads, diffusers and light fixtures all want the same plane, and whoever sets that out decides how straight the room reads.
Finishes. Paint before flooring, or the new floor gets protected, walked on and cleaned twice. Floor prep is the line people forget: leveling compound, a moisture test on a slab, transitions between finishes of different thickness.
Millwork, doors and punch. Counters get templated off the room after it is framed rather than off the drawing, and ordered near the beginning to land near the end. A late change to a counter moves an opening date. A late change to paint does not.

What a demising wall is, and why it is not just a wall

A demising wall is the wall between your space and somebody else’s, or between your space and common area. It normally runs all the way up to the structure above rather than stopping at the ceiling, it normally carries a fire rating, and it is normally where the sound requirement lives as well. An interior partition divides rooms inside your own space and can often stop at the ceiling grid, which is fine for privacy and close to useless for sound: the space above the ceiling runs on from one room to the next, so the noise goes over the top of the wall.

If quiet matters anywhere in your layout, say so before anything is framed. A wall taken to the deck, insulated, with its joints sealed, is a different wall from one that dies at the grid, and it is not a change anyone makes afterward without opening the ceiling back up.

What a build-out estimate should spell out

Worth getting in writing from everyone you ask, so the numbers compare:

Demising partitions: how they are built, how high they run, and to what rating.
Ceilings: grid and tile, or drywall, and what happens above them.
Floor finish: including leveling, transitions and what the existing slab needs.
Door and hardware schedule: and who furnishes each item.
Glazing: partitions, borrowed lights and storefront.
Containment: dust and noise, and protection of anything already finished.
Access: permitted working hours, freight and parking, and who arranges them.

Mechanical, electrical and plumbing usually follow partitions, and all three are separately licensed in Illinois. HVAC and electrical are licensed by the municipality rather than the state, so which license applies depends on the town the building is in. Include those items when you send the scope.

Where three numbers stop matching

Against one drawing set, three bids are usually pricing three different jobs. Most of the gap sits in four places, and none of them is the hourly rate.

The base bid: what is actually included, line by line, rather than the total at the bottom.
Allowances: a placeholder for something nobody has chosen yet. Tile, lighting, hardware and stone are the usual four, and a low allowance makes a low bid.
Exclusions: no exclusions list does not mean nothing is excluded. It means nobody wrote the list down.
Furnished by others: equipment, casework and signage bought elsewhere, and who receives it, stores it and installs it.

Send everyone the same drawings at the same revision, set the allowances yourself at the same number for all three, and ask each one for its exclusions as a written list rather than as a conversation. Then read the breakdown instead of the total. A number with no breakdown is not a lower price, it is less information.

Send building details or call (872) 302-3268

How a project runs

How long a job takes depends on its size, what is found once the old material comes off, material lead times, and weather. You’ll get a timeline with your estimate.

Permits: permit requirements are set by the village or city where the property sits, and they differ from one to the next. We’ll tell you what your job needs at the estimate.

Questions

What kind of commercial spaces do you work on?

Interior build-outs and tenant improvements: demising and partitions, ceilings, flooring, counters and millwork, doors and glazing, and the drywall and paint that ties it together. The commercial jobs on the projects page run from a full cafe interior to underground pipework beside a building. Send the building and the scope and you'll get a straight answer on whether it's a fit.

Can you work around a live business next door?

Usually. Neighboring tenants stay open, so the work gets staged and sequenced around them, dust and noise get contained, and the loud work goes where it causes least trouble. Say what the constraints are early and they shape the schedule.

Who deals with the landlord and the building?

Most commercial work sits under a landlord's rules as well as the village's: approved hours, protected routes in and out, insurance certificates naming the building. Tell us who the property manager is and what the lease requires, and that gets built into the plan rather than discovered halfway.

Do you handle permits for commercial work?

Permit requirements are set by the village or city where the property sits, and they differ from one to the next. Commercial work is more likely to need one than residential, and a change of use almost always does. We'll tell you what your job needs at the estimate.

What is a work letter, and why does it change the number?

It is the part of the lease that splits the build between landlord and tenant: what gets delivered with the space, what the tenant builds, and what an improvement allowance will actually reimburse. Two contractors making two different assumptions about where that line sits will hand you two different numbers for the same room. Send the work letter with the scope and it stops being an assumption.

What if the space is not what the drawings say?

Somewhere, it usually is not. A ceiling comes down and there is duct where the new wall goes, or the slab will not take drainage where it was drawn. What matters is whether the estimate in front of you already says who carries that: an allowance, a unit rate, or a written change order with a named approver. Ask every bidder which of the three they use, before anyone opens a ceiling.

Service area

Chicago
Elmhurst
Elmwood Park
Evanston
Forest Park
Franklin Park
Glenview
Harwood Heights
Lincolnwood
Melrose Park
Morton Grove
Niles
Norridge
Oak Park
Park Ridge
River Grove
Rosemont
Skokie
Wilmette

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Free estimate or call (872) 302-3268

Commercial build-outs, start to finish