Ping Pong with the City / Contractors

 Good morning, it's November and we're one month closer to opening shop. This weekend I'm focused on re-budgeting as we wait on more quotes, I can't budget in full yet, but it's something to get started on anyways as time runs short. I'm listening to the new album from "Ross from Friends", some quiet electronic and black coffee from reanimator as it storms like crazy outside. 

The City

I've been told a few times during this process that the city paperwork would be the slowest part; As far as I can tell now that's not true. For one thing the process of finding an available architect and then general contractor at my size has been incredibly tedious and slow. collectively taking almost four months now, and extending to at least 5 soon. The city by contrast has been pretty comfortingly bureaucratic, it was simple to get the COU (certificate of/change of use form), fill it out and submit it; That took about three weeks. 

The city also needs to review our build out plans (permits), which because I went through an architect should be a formality. Normally permits are submitted by your contractors (builders), but after speaking with the office they let me submit mine ahead of time, so that by the time I have a contractor (hopefully in the next week or two) they don't need to start at the back of the line with that paperwork.

On the city website the estimates on paperwork are very conservative, with a lot of processes estimated at 8-10 weeks, but in person you can get a better estimate. I was thankful to find out that more of the time it's like ten-fifteen business days or 2-3 weeks. In summary it's possible our paperwork will be ready around December 1st, which would be great since i'd estimate a couple more weeks of construction from there.

The Contractors

 I allotted myself a month to really blow up every contractor in Jacksonville for an estimate. Of the ten to twenty I emailed and called regularly for those few weeks, three got back to me that were typically taking smaller commercial projects; Even so, two were not interested in a project of this size. One surveyed the site and gave me an estimate that was double my budget, and so I extended my time to try and get another quote. 

Ultimately it'll cost what it costs, this is something I've had to tell myself a lot.

if I need to settle and take out a larger loan to get this done on time, it'll be worth the money I'm bleeding by not opening in December or January, especially at this low rent for the area. The important thing is to get a couple quotes and take out what I need the first time, so again I'm budgeting as accurately as I can and holding off for a second opinion.

Right now it's possible I'll open by the end of the year, and hey that's the goal. Have a good weekend everyone. - Elias