Throughout the project, i.d. Projects perform as the “informed client,” always leading and delivering the project with the best interests of the client in mind.   Our responsibilities include:

• Acting as the point of contact with the project team for all internal and external stakeholders.
• Ensuring that the project outcomes and requirements are adequately defined and that the needs of users and stakeholders are fully and properly understood and accounted for.
• Establishing and communicating the overall budget and timescales for projects.
• Managing the design and internal and external approvals.
• Tendering and managing the project on your behalf.   This is an “open book” approach in which you see all the contractor quotes.  There are no hidden costs, no markups and no commissions.
• Pricing, according to fixed fees.

Costs per project vary greatly, but you can refer to our online cost calculator for more information about our pricing.  When you move into a new office space or tenancy, usually the building manager will have a list of preferred contractors or subcontractors.  When you engage us, we will price with and against these contractors so you can compare the various options.   Recent projects indicate that some preferred sub-contractors can price between 10-20% more than our own sub-contractors.

Although the building manager cannot force you to use a particular contractor, he may recommend certain ones for the following reasons:

• He may believe that the building systems are complicated and beyond the ability of other subcontractors to work on – very rarely the case in actuality.
• The sub-contractor may have an ongoing relationship with the building manager (i.e., a service agreement) and bringing in a different sub-contractor “muddies the water” if any issues arise, which could be a legitimate concern.

Unfortunately, some sub-contractors use this to their advantage, and instead of being less expensive (which you would think should be the situation in that the know the building and the processes), are actually more expensive because they know that most tenants won’t question their costs.

The specific approvals required really depends on the project and the location.  If you are in a managed building, like an office or shopping centre, generally the whole building has an approval to operate and you will only require a CDC (Complying Development Certificate) for the changes you propose to make. 

If you are a standalone building or are required to “change the use” of the current operation, then you MAY need to obtain a DA (Development Approval) through your local council or shire.   Please call us to guide you through the process.

Typically, a CDC will take about a week from submission time until approval.  DAs, however, are a different beast.  These can involve notifying adjoining neighbours and the general public, so they can take some time, depend on the willingness of the community to provide timely feedback.  Councils have 6 weeks to determine an application, but generally it takes longer than this.