Questions

Establish three things before anything else: what the building has to do, whether the site is entitled, and what the geotechnical report says. Those three decide more about the cost and the schedule than any design decision that follows. If you do not have a geotechnical report, that is the first money to spend — before the architect and before us.

Earlier than most owners think to call. The most valuable conversation on any of these projects is the one before there is a drawing, where somebody tells you honestly whether the building you have in mind fits the budget you have in mind on the site you are looking at. That costs nothing and it is the conversation with the most leverage on everything after it.

Yes, and call early in the period rather than at the end of it. What a builder can usefully tell you in that window is what the site is likely to need before a building can go on it, roughly what the building you want would cost and how long it would take, and whether anything visible is a problem. What we cannot tell you is whether the price is right, which is not our question.

Not for a design-build engagement — that is the point of it. You may still want one, and that is a legitimate preference rather than a mistake: an independent architect advocating for you against the builder is a real benefit that design-build gives up. The delivery page sets that trade-off out properly, and we build to other architects’ drawings routinely.

Yes, and that is what the budgets page is for. An order-of-magnitude figure built from published ranges, with the assumptions stated, is usually enough to decide whether to proceed and to take to a board. What it is not is a commitment, and we will be clear about which you are holding.

Monthly pay applications against percentage completion of an agreed schedule of values, on your form or a standard industry form, supported by lien waivers from us and from subcontractors and suppliers. Detail in the payment and cancellation policy.

The whole project broken into divisions, each with a sum, adding to the contract amount. Every payment is drawn against it, which is why it matters: one that is front-loaded lets a contractor be paid ahead of the work, and that is the position you least want to be in if things go wrong later. You are entitled to review ours before approving it, and you should.

Withheld at the contract percentage from each payment and released as the contract specifies — normally the bulk at substantial completion with a portion held to final acceptance and closeout. Tying the final release to the closeout documents is correct and we support it; it is your only real leverage to ensure the as-builts and manuals actually arrive. Colorado has statutory provisions on public projects that govern over anything we would otherwise say.

In Colorado a subcontractor or supplier who is not paid can record a lien against the property even if you have paid the general contractor in full. What protects you is the waiver trail: conditional lien waivers with each application and unconditional ones once payment clears, from us and from our subcontractors and suppliers. Require them from any contractor. Reluctance to provide them is informative.

Bid, performance and payment bonds are arranged through our surety where a project requires them. We do not publish a bonding capacity on this website, because a figure on a web page is not evidence. What is evidence is a letter from the surety addressed to you for your project, and that is available on request.

Priced and agreed in writing before the work is carried out, with no exceptions. We will not act on a verbal instruction, because the person it hurts is the owner who later receives an invoice for something they remember differently. Three things generate them: your changes, concealed conditions, and drawing gaps — and on a project we designed, the third category is ours rather than yours.

Ours sits inside the contract and covers construction risk within our control; where it is not used, the contract says what happens to it. Yours sits outside the contract and covers scope you decide to add. An owner without their own contingency has no way to say yes to their own good idea at month eight, which is a genuinely frustrating position to be in and an avoidable one.

Ask us for the licence number and check it with the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department directly — it takes a minute and tells you whether it is current. Ask for certificates of general liability and workers’ compensation naming you, your property and your project, before signing rather than after. Do this for every firm you are considering, including us.

Because a photograph proves nothing you can verify: not who built it, not what it cost, not whether the project went well. A substantial share of this site’s readers are buying on behalf of an organisation that is specifically required to check things, and a gallery helps them not at all. What we offer instead is an address you can drive to and an owner’s telephone number. The about page sets out what to ask for in place of each missing claim.

A commercial or institutional building measured in hundreds of thousands to low millions. That is the size where an in-house design team removes more friction than it costs, and where self-performing four trades controls enough of the schedule to matter. A hospital, a high-rise or a large campus is the wrong fit — we would be brokering most of it, which defeats the reason to hire us. The full table is on the work page.

No. This is commercial and institutional building construction under NAICS 236220. Residential is a different trade with different rules and different economics, and a commercial contractor doing occasional residential work is usually expensive at it.

Yes, and we do. A project outside our size range, a single-trade scope, residential work, or a project where the lowest number is the only criterion are all cases where somebody else serves you better. Saying so costs us a bid and costs you nothing, which is the right way round.