Work record / Stories

Building it in house instead of paying for it twice

Outside architects quoted a large fee for the Midtown tower; I split out the one piece that needed their license and did the rest ourselves.

LIEF's Midtown Phoenix tower conversion needed design development, and outside architecture firms quoted $300,000 to $400,000 to carry it. I sat with that number before committing to anything.

I decided the design budget would stay away from outside architects. Working in an in-house Revit model and through the city's self-certification route, I built the model and the code packets myself. The architect of record came in for one thing only, the stamp the work legally required.

My reasoning was simple. If your own firm can do the design work, paying an outside firm full price to redo it buys nothing beyond the professional stamp. Once I isolated exactly which part of the service needed an outside license, we could pay for that part alone.

The project saved roughly $200,000 to $250,000 against the outside architect budgets. An internal agent review also turned up a bay that was nine and a half feet off and a wrong setback, together worth about $250,000 in potential rework, and it did so before any person spotted either.

Before paying full price for an outside professional, split the job into the part that needs their license and the part your team can already do, then pay for the first only. I was betting on my own team's judgment over an outside expert's standard process, and the internal review catching those errors is what made the bet pay.

Story details

All stories · Work record