Package 01
Preconstruction & the buy
Building the budget and the bid list before there is a drawing to price. This is where a commercial project is actually won or lost, and it is the one phase most owners are never invited into.
Typical span 6–24 weeks
01The work
Preconstruction has a reputation for being the soft phase — meetings, spreadsheets, a fee for talking. It is the opposite. It is the only phase in which the price of the building is still movable, and every hour spent here is worth roughly ten spent arguing later.
What actually happens in it is three things, and only one of them is budgeting.
The budget, which gets built at each design stage and tested against real subcontractor input rather than against a per-square-foot rate. The point is not the number; it is finding out early that the number does not work, while there is still time to change the building instead of the finishes.
Constructability, which means somebody who has built this detail saying so before it is drawn into forty sheets. A detail that cannot be built is cheap to change in design development and expensive to change after permit.
The bid list, which is the part nobody talks about and the part that decides the number. Who gets invited on each trade, how many of them will realistically bid, and what to do about the trades where the honest answer is one. A bid list assembled two weeks before bid day is a bid list that produces thin coverage, and thin coverage is paid for by the owner.
Long-lead procurement belongs here too. Switchgear, rooftop units, glazing, specialty doors and elevators routinely carry lead times that exceed the construction duration of the building they go into. Those are bought during design or they set the opening date.
An order of magnitude built from the published budget ranges, against your programme and your site, is a free conversation and always will be. If the answer is that the project does not work on the money you have, that is the most valuable thing anybody can tell you and it should not carry an invoice.
Establish these first
- What the building has to do
- The use, not the square footage. The use decides the code path, the occupancy, the systems and half the cost.
- The site, and the geotechnical report
- If there is no report, that is the first money to spend — before the architect and before us.
- The budget you actually have
- Disclosed at the start, honestly. A budget revealed at 90% design is a redesign, and everybody knows it except the owner.
- The date you need to be in it
- And what happens if you are not. A lease expiry and a preference produce different projects.
- Who decides, and how fast
- One named person, or a board with a meeting schedule. The second is fine and it belongs in the programme rather than in a surprise.
What you receive
Budget by division, a bid list by trade with expected coverage, a levelled scope matrix
In the format your records require, agreed at the start rather than discovered at closeout. The full list is on closeout and what you receive.
01.1Coverage
Who will actually bid this
Typical coverage for a project of this kind in the Denver metro. The full register, with every trade and the reasoning behind each count, is on the bid coverage page.
| Trade | Typical coverage | What it means for your number |
|---|---|---|
| Subcontractor interest at concept | — | Not solicited yet. What matters here is who is available, not who bids |
| Budget confidence at concept | ±25% | From published ranges and comparable projects |
| Budget confidence at schematic | ±15% | With real system selections and trade input |
| Budget confidence at design development | ±8% | With subcontractor pricing on the major trades |
| Budget confidence at GMP | ±0% | It is a commitment, with the contingency stated separately |
Coverage is a count and a word, never a colour. A trade with one bidder is marked thin in text, so this table reads identically in black and white, in print, and to a screen reader.
01.2Gaps
Where the money goes on this kind of project
Two honest bids that do not quite meet. Each is findable on one afternoon at levelling, and each is expensive once a crew is standing in it.
- Caught at bid
- Nothing — an email during design
- Found in the field
- 12 – 30 weeks of schedule, and it is nobody’s fault
The pattern never changes: two trades, one scope, two exclusions pointing at each other. The only thing that catches it is somebody reading both blocks before either contract is signed. Reading an exclusions block explains what to look for.
01.3Budget
What this costs
Planning ranges, wide on purpose. The full set with every package on it, and the soft costs that sit on top of any construction number, is on the budgets page.
| Item | Service | Unit | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01.10 | Concept budget From published ranges, against a programme and a site | LS | $0 |
| 01.20 | Feasibility and site test fit What the parcel allows once setbacks and parking are applied | LS | $4,500–$22,000 |
| 01.30 | Preconstruction, schematic through permit Budgeting, constructability, scheduling, procurement planning | LS | $18,000–$95,000 |
| 01.40 | Preconstruction, as a share of construction Where it runs through to a guaranteed maximum price | PCT | 0.5%–1.5% |
| 01.50 | Bid list development and solicitation Included in preconstruction; never charged separately | LS | included |
| 01.60 | Scope levelling and gap closure Included. This is the work, not an extra | LS | included |
Units are SF square foot of the area being built, SQ roofing square (100 SF), EA each, LS lump sum, PCT a percentage of construction cost. A line reading “site visit” is one that genuinely cannot be priced from a web page.
Figures are USD planning ranges for commercial construction in the Denver metro. They exclude land, design and engineering fees, permit and tap fees, furnishings and equipment, and any applicable tax, and assume normal site conditions and a buildable season. Bid coverage counts are typical for this market and this building type, not a promise about your project. They are published so an owner can size a project, and ask better questions, before there is a drawing to price. They are planning figures, not a bid. Reviewed October 2026. A price for your project comes from a proposal against a defined scope. See the disclaimer.
01.4Questions
Questions about this package
Specific to this kind of work. The general ones — contracts, pay applications, retainage, change orders, insurance, bonding — are on the FAQ page.
Why would I pay for preconstruction?
Because the alternative is finding out at bid that the building you designed costs forty per cent more than you have, after you have paid an architect to draw all of it. Preconstruction is insurance against that, and it is cheap insurance. On a simple, well-precedented building with a generous budget it is probably not worth it, and we will say so rather than sell it to you.
What is actually in a bid list, and can I see it?
The firms being invited on each trade, with how many are expected to bid. And yes — ask to see it, from any contractor. An owner reviewing a bid list before it goes out is unusual and it is entirely reasonable. What you are looking for is the trades with only one or two names on them, because those are the ones that will price themselves.
What do you do about a trade where only one firm will bid?
Four things, in order. Widen the net geographically, which costs mobilisation but restores competition. Repackage the scope so it is attractive to more firms — a small tonnage of steel bundled with the fabricator rather than let on its own. Negotiate openly with the one bidder on an open-book basis, which is a weaker position but an honest one. Or tell you that the trade will be expensive and carry it as a stated allowance rather than pretending. What we do not do is present a sole-source number as though it were competitive.
How accurate is a budget before there are drawings?
A concept budget is about ±25%, which sounds useless and is not: it reliably answers whether you are looking at a two-million project or a five-million one, and that is the question that actually has to be answered before anybody spends money on design. The accuracy improves at each stage, and the table above says by how much. What matters is that you are told the accuracy as well as the number.
00The rest
The other four packages
Ground-up commercial buildings in the Denver metro — offices, retail, flex and light industrial — bought as about thirty subcontracts and levelled against each other before any of them is awarded.
- You receive
- Full drawing set, schedule of values, levelled subcontracts, closeout package
Fitting out a shell or a second-generation space against a lease date somebody has already signed. Fewer trades than a new building, and proportionally more gaps between them.
- You receive
- Permit set, landlord sign-offs, certificate of occupancy, closeout package
Expanding or rebuilding a building somebody is still working in. The phasing plan is the project, and the gaps are worse because half the scope is against existing construction nobody has opened yet.
- You receive
- Permit set, phasing plan, schedule of values, closeout package
Work for public and institutional owners, where the procurement is public, the bid tabulation is a published document, and the occupancy date is set by somebody else’s calendar.
- You receive
- Bid tabulation, certified payroll, schedule of values, commissioning record, closeout
Send us a bid you have already received
If you are holding subcontract bids and the numbers do not sit right, read the exclusions blocks to us on the telephone and we will tell you what is missing between them. It costs nothing, it takes about twenty minutes, and it is useful whether or not you ever hire us.
Pinkard Construction Co. · 9195 W 6th Ave, Lakewood, CO 80215