Building Costs

What are my building costs?! The #1  burning question on everyone’s mind, when building a commercial or industrial develeopment.
Along with, what is the price of tilt-up per square meter? And how long will it take to build my project?

For more information regarding building timeframe, click here.

The question of how much will a building cost, is a bit like the question ‘How long is a bit of string?’
That is until you/we know certain parameters such as;

1)  How big is the building?
2)  How tall is the building?
3)  Is there an office component or is it all open warehouse or factory?
4)  Are there multiple storeys or just a single storey?
5)  Are there any special requirements (cranes, floor loads), large or heavy-duty external hard standing
areas?
6)  What size lot is it on and what is the plot ratio (or external works area component to the building
floor area works component)?
7)  If they are factory units, the individual unit size can be important as you could build the same overall
building area with 5 larger units.
As opposed to 10 smaller units and have a vastly different cost outcome.
8)  Which local government area is it being built in?
As development requirements and constraints can vary greatly between local government areas.
9)  Whether the design work is included in that cost, or whether a fully specified consultant design will
be provided.
If so, what level of spec the building has been designed to?

These are just some of the considerations when you are thinking of building. Not everything you put into a building will necessarily increase its floor area.

If you increase cost without changing the floor area, the cost per m2 will inevitably go up.

Average Building Costs

The next question by most of our clients is generally along the lines of “ok so, what is the cost of a standard build that you do?”

The short answer is, there is no such thing as a standard build. Each one of our builds is different.

However, if we picked some parameters such as:

–  Design costs and approvals fees included;
–  A standard 125mm thick wall panel;
–  A 7.5m maximum parapet height;
–  A unit development of 2 units at approx. 55% plot ratio on the site, each just under 500m2;
–  A single basic disabled toilet with no shower and floor tiling with 200mm skirting tile, in each unit;
–  With bare minimum electrical
– switchboard, power point for tea bench, 1 hi-bay light, emergency and exit lights;
–  Manually (chain) operated roller door (or doors);
–  Instantaneous electric hot water unit;
–  Minimal shopfront glazing; and
–  No landscaping or fencing included

Then, we are we can start to give you somewhat, of an idea of building costs.

In the past, we have built a similar project to this recently, for around $550 (+ GST) per m2.

However, we built a similar project with one change – the average unit size was 120m2, in lieu of 500m2 and the price went up to closer to $1,000 per m2.

As you can tell, it is very difficult to put a rough metre rate budget on such a build. We need to know the without complete parameters of what the client wants, in order to give a close to an accurate estimate.

We would ask a few questions and quote a range along the lines of;

1)  $650 – $750 per m2 for factory units (depending on size and spec);

2)  $550 – $650 per m2 for general larger warehouse spaces with no office component and no
sprinklers and not over height;

3)  $1,250 to $1,750 for office space built as an adjunct to the above warehouse development but as a
bare shell with wall linings, ceilings, no A/C or floor treatments; and

4)  $75 – $100 per m2 for sealed drained concrete or bitumen carpark built at the same time as the remainder of the project.

Factors to keep in mind regarding the building costs

There are some factors that are going to change those prices fairly drastically.

For example;
–  if a warehouse needs sprinkler, is of a steel frame, full concrete construction or is intended to be
higher than a standard 125mm (7.5m high) panel might permit, this will increase the costs; or
–  if the warehouse was a workshop and required a heavy capacity craneage to be installed;
–  Where an office is for consulting rooms, and are fully fitted out with partitions, carpets, air-
conditioning etc. With additional plumbing and finishes – this can run to in excess of $3,000 per m2
depending on the final design.
–  Any part of the above project is being done as a standalone project or stages (not getting the benefit
of shared walls/supervision and site/job costs etc.
–  Where the design consultants have been heavy-handed, on the design work in building additional
cost in the fixed cost side of construction (material and labour components) which the builder
generally has no control over.

Your Building Costs Budget

We are always reluctant to quote our clients budgets based on arbitrary metre rates. This could lead to a disaster, where a client will take the step to buy land (based on a meter rate budget) only to find that there are significant cost and budget issues in the future.

In lieu of quoting metre rates, we offer a no-obligation budgeting exercise – where we will provide a sketch of the development proposal, on a lot and prepare a budgeting estimate.  We will perform a take-off of, the work we expect to be necessary to complete the remaining design and construction of the development.

The budget roughly calculated through this process will be very close to the final cost of the development – barring any scope changes.

This process had the added benefit of allowing us to shape the development, to a budget that you may have that will work for your development cost plan, financial capacity and/or business. This works best when, you are prepared to share your project budget and ideal outcomes for the development with us at this early stage.

Once you have your completed budgets and if the development stacks up, we can discuss what further steps we can take to lock down a final price for the work and proceed further.

If you are interested in enquiring in relation to a potential commercial or industrial construction project, we would be happy to assist.

For more information on building costs, please call 08 9456 1955 or email [email protected] to talk to one of our friendly team members.

DISCLAIMER

Please note: All pricing on this page is exclusive of GST and has been prepared for the sole purposes of demonstrating the given pricing examples only.

Pricing is subject to change over time and the pricing on this page may not represent the latest or most accurate pricing for the works described at the time this web page was viewed or retrieved.

We recommend that you seek clarified advice from us as to the likely cost of completing your development prior to relying on any pricing information contained herein.