So You Want to Build a Building: Where to Begin?

Congratulations! You’ve decided you want a building!

Now comes the fun part: getting it built!

But let’s not jump the gun quite yet. A lot of work goes into every building project before a shovel can even enter the ground. There are many steps in the construction process to consider to ensure your building project will progress at your required schedule. The following is the framework that LeFrois Builders and Developers uses with clients to get the construction process started.

First, it’s important to consider the functionality of your business/organization. Knowing this will offer guidance to both the internal and external designs of your building. For example, internally an accounting firm would want a wide open area for cubicles; meanwhile, an industry would need warehouse space for storage. If you’re in retail or healthcare, you’d want to consider room for customer/patient traffic flow. Externally, you should know if your building needs loading docks, or overhead doors.

Knowing functionality helps LeFrois Builders & Developers come up with a general layout that leads to multiple design options based on price. For this step, you will need to know your budget. Your budget will guide LeFrois (design/build Rochester NY) in creating drawings and designs that fit within your price range.

While creating designs, LeFrois will sit down with officials in the town that you want your building located to present rough sketches. This is a valuable step to take early on because the town’s feedback will offer a good indication of whether or not the designs need to be reworked to receive final approval.

After the plans are hammered out (about a 1-2 week process), they will be submitted to the town board for preliminary sign offs. Then the plans will go on to a second board meeting for final sign offs to get your building ready for a permit. LeFrois (design/build Rochester NY) is very familiar with this pro
cess and knows that town board meetings are only held once a month. LeFrois will give you the dates of all these meetings as early as possible to help you get an understanding of your project’s timeline for approval.
These are the steps it takes to get a building project underway. On average, this process takes about three months. If you’re looking to start your project tomorrow, keep these steps in mind when considering the timeline it takes for the shovel to hit the dirt.