A GC introduced me to his client who leased a 800 sf raw retail space to open a coffee shop. I provided a proposal to design and produce the permit set for $11,500. The owner said that they are on a tight budget but would like to work with me so Ioffered to lower my fee to $8,500 with a reduced scope of services like no renderings. The next day they informed me that they decided to go with another architect with a lower fee.
Do you think my fee was too high or should I have broken up my fee in another way?
There will always be another architect that will gladly do it for less. Don't be a part of the race to the bottom. For what's it worth, my fee would have been double your initial bid--and that would not have included any consultants. Be happy you didn't get the project as you likely would not have made any money on it. Cheers.
A client that shops fees usually has no aesthetic taste or quality sense either and probably would have turned your design into shit by insisting on the cheapest possible materials and fixtures.
Your fees look to me like a reasonable percentage of the construction cost, maybe even a little low if you adjust for NYC and assuming you have to do a full MEP package to make the raw shell space into a food service use.
I don't think cutting out renders to lower your fee is a good idea these days. They are pretty crucial to getting the client to buy into the design concept and the clients expect to see them.
Thanks, I was looking for a validation that my proposals were reasonable. or even on the cheaper end. I was questioning myself because this is the second project I lost out on this month to a lower bidder.
In case of coffee shop, I might use either row 1 or 2 or the average of both. However tenant improvements might be a 40%-60% of the % value above so I may take the either row or average of the two then divide by 2 or multiply by 0.4 to 0.6. This would be fair in cases not involving the designing of a new building for use as a shop. This really depends on what the work would be. The typical fees will usually be for new buildings. Historic buildings can be equal to or greater in percentages depending on what you are dealing with. Therefore, it can vary quite a bit especially with the agreed scope of work.
I'm sorry to say that smaller size jobs often have the most fee competition. A legit architecture firm has problems competing with a) people with crazy low overhead working out of their bedrooms running pirated software and carrying little or no insurance; b) subsidized vanity firms of trust funders or people with rich spouses, and c) college faculty side hustles where the university is providing the person's health insurance, software, cheap student labor, etc.
If you haven't already, politely ask the client who they hired and what their scope and fee was. Then go see the thing when it's finished to ascertain if the client and designer actually did a good job with it. It's helpful to know what your competition is and how they do things.
"College faculty side hustles where the university is providing the person's health insurance, software, cheap student labor, etc." Hear hear! Not to mention use of school facilities in the name of "research".
Honestly, there's not enough information to make a decent assessment of your quote. Flesh it out a bit more. Packaged food, or prepared on site? Level of finish, complete custom, or bare bones - where millwork is bought not designed? I'm going to assume design build for the MEP? Did you include CA? Starbucks type or NYC cool?
Mar 28, 22 6:36 pm ·
·
mtdew
They have a construction budget of $100/ sf. new ducts from existing air handler. Non-commercial kitchen with gas oven. so no kitchen exhaust, grease trap... they wanted a very clean, minimal look based on the reference pictures that they showed me. he counter would be custom mill
work.
Mar 29, 22 4:30 pm ·
·
mtdew
elec oven...
Mar 29, 22 4:55 pm ·
·
reallynotmyname
Did your fee include providing MEP drawings with engineers' stamps?
Mar 29, 22 6:23 pm ·
·
b3tadine[sutures]
NYC area?? $100 sf? You should be happy to be rid of them.
Had one guy hang up the phone on me after I told him my fee. He said
he can have someone else do it for a dollar a sq foot... so I guess he was trying to see if I was going to do it for .50 cents a sq foot LOL. bye!
honestly... you will get a lot of tire kickers out there hanging your own shingle. Yea I get it... people are trying to save some money. Don't take it personal and just keep on rolling. best of luck friend
x-jla flat fee formula is as follows——how long you think it will take x 1.5 (how long it will really take) x hourly rate (add pita fee “pain in the ass” of 20% hourly rate if applicable).
I have done this for beer. At two different breweries. Well not for life but the projects were tiny (mostly code/zoning stuff) and both breweries were VERY pleased with my proposal. And if they ever need a bigger job, I'm their guy. Win/win
With small project you always need to charge more / higher percentage. You have all the project start and admin costs as a big project. You have a smaller amount of drawings / documents to produce but it's still take the same amount of effort to process the permits etc. I have found on smaller projects that we just can't be cost effective with our time and therefore don't take them on. I am literally embarassed to provide a realistic fee for what we should charge so typically say no to the project. Only really work if someone is prepared to spend heavily and don't mind a significant Arch Fee but typically we just let the project go.
Asian firms will do a 800 Sq ft space for $7000 with drawings and permits. I’ve done 4 bubble tea shops with the same firm. And they’re just as experienced as any other. Most contractors and architects rip people off.
So I think your prices are quite high.
example I wanted to get some steel dividers with glass installed in one of my offices. I got a quote from a non-Asian contractor for $23,000. I mentioned it to a few relatives and they sent an Asian contractor who came and did it for $11,000 cash in three days. The other contractor wanted me to wait two months for him.
$7000 USD is converted to Chinese yuan equivalent to $70,000 USD worth of yauns and when converted back to USDs it is worth $7,000 so it's an illegal currency exchange manipulation. It's crooked. So yeah, they can work for 75 cents an hour because 75 cents buys Chinese what you can buy for $7.50 in the U.S. So, it's a manipulation game. Yeah, no wonder they're willing to work on such project for $7,000 USD because it's like a $70,000 salary lifestyle in China when spent there.
In NYC, I have flat fees for projects up to 2,000 SF such as these small coffee shops. Basic permit set with no design whatsoever, just technical drawings for compliance with code and egress etc $12,000 min flat fee for the drawings and another $5,000 for the filing / expediting. Construction administration I bill after that hourly at $175 per hour.
I have lost many projects to low ballers and cheap architects in nyc (although I also consider myself on the cheap end), but refuse to go lower and many clients have called me back on numerous occasions with complaints with bad service and quality.
You did yourself an profession a solid by not going lower. Understand that you lost the project but sometimes you have to lose the bad ones to gain the good fee projects.
Interesting. Mind if I ask what the angle is for a "basic permit set, no design"? Not pushing back on it, i've just never heard that kind of scope goal here.
Feb 1, 23 9:13 am ·
·
reallynotmyname
A lot of times "no design" means these owners will have their wife or daughter do the "design" by picking furniture and finishes. Or they get the furniture dealer to do "design" as a "free" service add-on to the furniture order.
The family or dealer design will often run afoul of some kind of regulation(s) and thus be un-permittable. You as the "no design" "permit drawings only" architect will then have to do work to fix their fuck-ups. You may or may not get paid for that effort.
Feb 2, 23 10:59 am ·
·
bennyc
Well as the architect of record, your job is to review all materials and furniture clearances that go into a project. If you clearly have that excluded in your contract there should never be any issues. This can all be covered in a solid contract that clearly excludes those design and furniture items, and the services to review them or not is clearly stated on the proposal.
@Bench, many (if not "most") small commercial owners do not want anything except what is required to jump through the jurisdictional hoop...the business plans never included costs to design a space & they just want functional, safe, clean as the first priority
i will add some jurisdictions near me have started warning the AOR that they are required to review deferred design/build submittals and stamp as reviewed/approved for those separate permits as being in line with the building permit...whereas in previous years you just wouldn't hear from the owner & gc on those items. So, that time is now mentioned in any of my proposals such as the one here..
Feb 2, 23 12:25 pm ·
·
Bench
Interesting. Does this just boil down to some kind of schematic code study that dictates required clearances, square footage, etc.? In theory the whole idea makes sense to me, I'm just trying to parse what the difference is between an in-depth code review drawing and the actual permit set that would be sent to the AHJ for review...
Permit set with no design, meaning architectural design only for code and egress and fire rating, and any other required service as part of a basic architectural services within standard of care. No selection of finishes or design of millwork features, or selection of lighting etc. Meaning bare bone architectural service with no time allotted for design features. Ex. Say there is a bathroom in the project, a permit design set would specify tile finish, but not type of tile, elevations of bathroom or specifications of tile. If there is a bar counter, I would just draw footprint of counter, and no section details or millwork details.
The reason for a permit set is to keep fees competitive, once I go above and beyond, from my experience, I lose project to those "cheap" architects.
And keep in mind, this permit set is not something I do often, this is only on special occasions where I need the work and fee. Ideally Id like to provide full service design and bid set.
The cost of an architect for a small coffee shop will depend on the scope of services required, the size of the project, and the architect's fees. In my opinion, a good ballpark range for a small coffee shop project around $8,000 is reasonable but you do you.
I had a firm that specialized in franchise/restaurant architecture and worked in over 30 states. If it was a repeat client, I would typically charge between $4500-$5800, which included MEP for a coffee shop set.
In your case, a one-off buildout with NY engineering, I would think 4500 for arch and 2500+ for MEP, then there is the NYC factor...
Reasonable Architect's fee for a small coffee shop
A GC introduced me to his client who leased a 800 sf raw retail space to open a coffee shop. I provided a proposal to design and produce the permit set for $11,500. The owner said that they are on a tight budget but would like to work with me so Ioffered to lower my fee to $8,500 with a reduced scope of services like no renderings. The next day they informed me that they decided to go with another architect with a lower fee.
Do you think my fee was too high or should I have broken up my fee in another way?
FYI this is in NY metro area
There will always be another architect that will gladly do it for less. Don't be a part of the race to the bottom. For what's it worth, my fee would have been double your initial bid--and that would not have included any consultants. Be happy you didn't get the project as you likely would not have made any money on it. Cheers.
A client that shops fees usually has no aesthetic taste or quality sense either and probably would have turned your design into shit by insisting on the cheapest possible materials and fixtures.
Your fees look to me like a reasonable percentage of the construction cost, maybe even a little low if you adjust for NYC and assuming you have to do a full MEP package to make the raw shell space into a food service use.
I don't think cutting out renders to lower your fee is a good idea these days. They are pretty crucial to getting the client to buy into the design concept and the clients expect to see them.
Thanks, I was looking for a validation that my proposals were reasonable. or even on the cheaper end. I was questioning myself because this is the second project I lost out on this month to a lower bidder.
From R.S. Means.
In case of coffee shop, I might use either row 1 or 2 or the average of both. However tenant improvements might be a 40%-60% of the % value above so I may take the either row or average of the two then divide by 2 or multiply by 0.4 to 0.6. This would be fair in cases not involving the designing of a new building for use as a shop. This really depends on what the work would be. The typical fees will usually be for new buildings. Historic buildings can be equal to or greater in percentages depending on what you are dealing with. Therefore, it can vary quite a bit especially with the agreed scope of work.
I'm sorry to say that smaller size jobs often have the most fee competition. A legit architecture firm has problems competing with a) people with crazy low overhead working out of their bedrooms running pirated software and carrying little or no insurance; b) subsidized vanity firms of trust funders or people with rich spouses, and c) college faculty side hustles where the university is providing the person's health insurance, software, cheap student labor, etc.
If you haven't already, politely ask the client who they hired and what their scope and fee was. Then go see the thing when it's finished to ascertain if the client and designer actually did a good job with it. It's helpful to know what your competition is and how they do things.
"College faculty side hustles where the university is providing the person's health insurance, software, cheap student labor, etc." Hear hear! Not to mention use of school facilities in the name of "research".
Honestly, there's not enough information to make a decent assessment of your quote. Flesh it out a bit more. Packaged food, or prepared on site? Level of finish, complete custom, or bare bones - where millwork is bought not designed? I'm going to assume design build for the MEP? Did you include CA? Starbucks type or NYC cool?
They have a construction budget of $100/ sf. new ducts from existing air handler. Non-commercial kitchen with gas oven. so no kitchen exhaust, grease trap... they wanted a very clean, minimal look based on the reference pictures that they showed me. he counter would be custom mill work.
elec oven...
Did your fee include providing MEP drawings with engineers' stamps?
NYC area?? $100 sf? You should be happy to be rid of them.
Had one guy hang up the phone on me after I told him my fee. He said
he can have someone else do it for a dollar a sq foot... so I guess he
was trying to see if I was going to do it for .50 cents a sq foot LOL. bye!
honestly... you will get a lot of tire kickers out there hanging your own shingle. Yea I get it... people are trying to save some money. Don't take it personal and just keep on rolling. best of luck friend
Sounds like you avoided some headaches.
x-jla flat fee formula is as follows——how long you think it will take x 1.5 (how long it will really take) x hourly rate (add pita fee “pain in the ass” of 20% hourly rate if applicable).
Ask for free coffee for life. Based on my math, it's a good deal...
I have done this for beer. At two different breweries. Well not for life but the projects were tiny (mostly code/zoning stuff) and both breweries were VERY pleased with my proposal. And if they ever need a bigger job, I'm their guy. Win/win
natematt wins the internet for today!
lol that's a great idea!
with their business "acumen" you might get free coffee for the two or so years they exist before they close.
With small project you always need to charge more / higher percentage. You have all the project start and admin costs as a big project. You have a smaller amount of drawings / documents to produce but it's still take the same amount of effort to process the permits etc. I have found on smaller projects that we just can't be cost effective with our time and therefore don't take them on. I am literally embarassed to provide a realistic fee for what we should charge so typically say no to the project. Only really work if someone is prepared to spend heavily and don't mind a significant Arch Fee but typically we just let the project go.
Asian firms will do a 800 Sq ft space for $7000 with drawings and permits. I’ve done 4 bubble tea shops with the same firm. And they’re just as experienced as any other. Most contractors and architects rip people off.
So I think your prices are quite high.
example I wanted to get some steel dividers with glass installed in one of my offices. I got a quote from a non-Asian contractor for $23,000. I mentioned it to a few relatives and they sent an Asian contractor who came and did it for $11,000 cash in three days. The other contractor wanted me to wait two months for him.
Just saying.
Just saying, you're full of shit.
$7000 USD is converted to Chinese yuan equivalent to $70,000 USD worth of yauns and when converted back to USDs it is worth $7,000 so it's an illegal currency exchange manipulation. It's crooked. So yeah, they can work for 75 cents an hour because 75 cents buys Chinese what you can buy for $7.50 in the U.S. So, it's a manipulation game. Yeah, no wonder they're willing to work on such project for $7,000 USD because it's like a $70,000 salary lifestyle in China when spent there.
best you didnt go lower. even small project you gotta do a min amount of work/ coordination
In NYC, I have flat fees for projects up to 2,000 SF such as these small coffee shops. Basic permit set with no design whatsoever, just technical drawings for compliance with code and egress etc $12,000 min flat fee for the drawings and another $5,000 for the filing / expediting. Construction administration I bill after that hourly at $175 per hour.
I have lost many projects to low ballers and cheap architects in nyc (although I also consider myself on the cheap end), but refuse to go lower and many clients have called me back on numerous occasions with complaints with bad service and quality.
You did yourself an profession a solid by not going lower. Understand that you lost the project but sometimes you have to lose the bad ones to gain the good fee projects.
Interesting. Mind if I ask what the angle is for a "basic permit set, no design"? Not pushing back on it, i've just never heard that kind of scope goal here.
A lot of times "no design" means these owners will have their wife or daughter do the "design" by picking furniture and finishes. Or they get the furniture dealer to do "design" as a "free" service add-on to the furniture order.
The family or dealer design will often run afoul of some kind of regulation(s) and thus be un-permittable. You as the "no design" "permit drawings only" architect will then have to do work to fix their fuck-ups. You may or may not get paid for that effort.
Well as the architect of record, your job is to review all materials and furniture clearances that go into a project. If you clearly have that excluded in your contract there should never be any issues. This can all be covered in a solid contract that clearly excludes those design and furniture items, and the services to review them or not is clearly stated on the proposal.
@Bench, many (if not "most") small commercial owners do not want anything except what is required to jump through the jurisdictional hoop...the business plans never included costs to design a space & they just want functional, safe, clean as the first priority
i will add some jurisdictions near me have started warning the AOR that they are required to review deferred design/build submittals and stamp as reviewed/approved for those separate permits as being in line with the building permit...whereas in previous years you just wouldn't hear from the owner & gc on those items. So, that time is now mentioned in any of my proposals such as the one here..
Interesting. Does this just boil down to some kind of schematic code study that dictates required clearances, square footage, etc.? In theory the whole idea makes sense to me, I'm just trying to parse what the difference is between an in-depth code review drawing and the actual permit set that would be sent to the AHJ for review...
Permit set with no design, meaning architectural design only for code and egress and fire rating, and any other required service as part of a basic architectural services within standard of care. No selection of finishes or design of millwork features, or selection of lighting etc. Meaning bare bone architectural service with no time allotted for design features. Ex. Say there is a bathroom in the project, a permit design set would specify tile finish, but not type of tile, elevations of bathroom or specifications of tile. If there is a bar counter, I would just draw footprint of counter, and no section details or millwork details.
The reason for a permit set is to keep fees competitive, once I go above and beyond, from my experience, I lose project to those "cheap" architects.
And keep in mind, this permit set is not something I do often, this is only on special occasions where I need the work and fee. Ideally Id like to provide full service design and bid set.
The cost of an architect for a small coffee shop will depend on the scope of services required, the size of the project, and the architect's fees. In my opinion, a good ballpark range for a small coffee shop project around $8,000 is reasonable but you do you.
I had a firm that specialized in franchise/restaurant architecture and worked in over 30 states. If it was a repeat client, I would typically charge between $4500-$5800, which included MEP for a coffee shop set.
In your case, a one-off buildout with NY engineering, I would think 4500 for arch and 2500+ for MEP, then there is the NYC factor...
Honestly, that's absurd.
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