Meadowvale Office Retrofit

Preconstruction settled the scope split before tender

Synergistix reviewed the base-building drawings and the tenant design against the work letter and produced a scope-allocation matrix: every assembly on the floor assigned to landlord account, tenant allowance, or tenant cost above allowance. Where an item served both, the allocation basis was written down and agreed before the trade packages were issued. That document became the reference for pricing, for change evaluation and for final billing.

Constructability review ran at the same time. Duct routing was tested against existing structure and the new ceiling height before the mechanical package was tendered, and the electrical distribution was sized against a load schedule that assumed the densest layout the tenant was considering rather than the one currently drawn. Both reviews moved coordination conflicts out of the construction phase, where they cost demolition, and into the drawing phase, where they cost drafting time.

Open-book cost reporting against two cost centres

Trade packages were tendered to prequalified subcontractors and levelled for gaps and exclusions before award. The landlord saw the bid tabulations, the recommended awards and the reasons for them. From award onward, the cost report carried committed cost, cost to date, approved changes and forecast to completion, broken out by cost centre so the allowance position was visible in every reporting period rather than reconciled at the end.

• Committed cost by trade contract, with the awarded value and the current approved value side by side.
• Allowance drawdown, showing how much of the tenant improvement allowance remained uncommitted.
• Change register with cost, schedule impact, originating cause and cost centre for each entry.
• Contingency position, held by the landlord and drawn down only against a documented instruction.
• Forecast to completion for both cost centres, restated each month rather than carried forward unchanged.

Sequencing around an occupied building

Base-building mechanical tie-ins were grouped into three weekend shutdown windows rather than spread through the working week. Each window was issued to building management and to affected tenants in advance with a start time, a return-to-service time and a fallback position if the work ran long. Demolition and overhead rough-in were scheduled outside tenant business hours where noise transfer was a factor, and dock and freight elevator bookings were held on a construction calendar shared with the property manager so trade deliveries never competed with tenant operations.

The floor was handed over in time for the lease commencement date, with the base-building mechanical replacement complete and commissioned. The three shutdown windows were executed as scheduled and building services were returned to the affected floors within the published times. Construction ran for eighteen weeks with the balance of the building occupied throughout and no lost-time incidents recorded on site.

• Scope allocation was settled in preconstruction, so cost-centre disputes did not surface at final billing.
• The landlord tracked allowance drawdown monthly and knew the position before it was committed, not after.
• Long-lead mechanical equipment was released against the load schedule while tenant design continued.
• Shutdowns were published in advance, and tenant complaints were handled by the property manager against a known plan.
• Closeout delivered as-built drawings, warranties, operating manuals and maintenance training in one indexed package.

The reusable part of this project is the scope-allocation matrix. On any landlord-and-tenant retrofit the argument that consumes the most time is not whether the work was done but who agreed to pay for it. Writing that allocation down before tender, and reporting against it every period, removes the argument from the end of the job where it is expensive and puts it at the start where it is cheap.