Introducing Our Project Cost Estimating Calculator

Many factors can influence your decision to renew a commercial real estate lease or relocate your office space, including its impacts on employees, business operations, and clients or customers. COVID-19 accelerated an already growing trend of embracing remote work or hybrid work models, and your best decision may be to renew your lease and modify your existing workspace.

However, modifying a commercial workspace can be a large undertaking for any business, and many aren’t sure what to expect once they’ve begun renovations. 

If you are considering modifying your space, have you considered how much renovating an office space costs? On average, business owners spend $50 to $100 per square foot for in-place renovations but for a Class A building, costs could increase up to $100 – $250 per square foot. In order to meet your workspace goals and make informed decisions, researching and working with a project management team can make your office remodel less stressful.  

What to Expect: Get Real-Time Estimates on Remodeling

As part of our mission to help organizations successfully navigate space changes, regardless of whether they are experiencing re-organization, merger-acquisition, or new leadership, KGO has developed a free web-based application that allows companies to determine expected market costs to build and outfit an office space – our Project Cost Estimating Calculator.

The calculator develops a budget of hard and soft costs related to construction, including material and labor — comparable to a full-scale budget summary — empowering you to make real-time decisions with expense estimates for furniture, IT and A/V, plumbing, electrical, and more for a true turnkey project. 

The tool requires minimal knowledge or skills in designing or renovating a workspace, leveraging sourced personnel who are leading real estate and facility projects in their organizations to provide these cost insights and market expectations. 

How It Works

Whether you’re starting your career as a facility manager, operating or real estate manager, or looking for a tool that can guide you through the fundamentals of project budgeting, our Project Cost Estimating Calculator enables you to estimate costs for facility renovation, upgrades or relocation based on recent market costs and trends.

• Save time creating budgets. Get your customized project estimate in a matter of minutes. We translate your project needs into actual costs.
• Provide insight on actual spendings. Become familiar with itemized costs and major cost categories that will drive your project budget.
• Share current trends for benchmarking. Our calculations are based on current trends, historic costs and similar scopes of work, giving you real-time estimates relative to your project and budget.

Fortunately, our Project Cost Estimating Calculator makes planning your next office renovation easier than ever. With the tool, you can select various industry sectors that apply to you, such as law firms, healthcare, or education, in order to fully align your renovation budget with real-time data in the current markets. 

Additionally, you can input important information that more accurately shapes your project cost estimate, including: 

• Real estate market (the city or region where you are renovating) 
• Square footage of your space 
• Construction type (if the space will be occupied or vacant at the time of the work) 
• Type of project (if it is a full build-out or complete renovation, shell renovation, or just 
• And more! 

Your total project estimate will adjust according to your selections based on existing market costs in the Washington D.C. market.

When you access this free resource, we’ll ask a series of questions about your current situation and vision for your new space. You’ll then receive an itemized list of expenses based on actual historic costs to develop a similar workspace. Our data is provided by select contractors and vendors in our network, providing a base for all costs based on actual, current prices — not just subjective estimates.

Why Use the Calculator?

Renovations can begin in your workspace after you’ve signed your lease, but the size of your project will determine the length of your remodel, specifically regarding design, bidding, and construction. Changes to a previously or currently occupied space could run close to 20 weeks (five months) with basics such as ceilings, plumbing, electrical, and hardware. For first-time tenants looking at a full build-out of their new space, the additional construction and fixtures can add an additional 12 weeks to your project (eight months total).

Therefore, the first weeks in any project are crucial, specifically regarding costs, and you can make decisions quickly and efficiently with the Project Cost Estimating Calculator based on the needs of your business. 

Ready to Work Together?  

Modifying a commercial workspace can be a large undertaking for any business, but there are resources available to help make renovations a smoother process. We’re proud to bring an innovative resource like our Project Cost Estimating Calculator to help businesses make informed decisions related to renovating their workspace.

Sign up to be notified when we launch the tool or request a demo today. Additionally, we are looking to partner with select contractors and vendors to contribute benchmark costs and provide data. Partners will receive recognition on our website and will be listed in our vendor directory in addition to insights and trends in the Washington D.C. market. If you’re interested in learning more, connect with us by visiting KGOPM.com/Connect or calling (202) 552-0002.