Why the numbers are on the website

A practice fitout is usually the second-largest commitment a clinician makes, after the practice itself. The first question anyone asks is what it costs per square metre.

We went and checked how the industry answers that. Across the pages currently ranking for medical, dental and veterinary fitout searches in Australia, not one of them contains a dollar figure. Several carry an FAQ titled "how much does a fitout cost" whose answer never gets to a number. One of the largest routes the entire question into a calculator that ends at a thank-you page.

There is a defensible reason for it. Every project genuinely is different, and a published range invites comparison on the one number that is easiest to compare and hardest to compare fairly.

But the effect is that someone deciding between two tenancies on a Tuesday afternoon cannot find out whether either of them is remotely within reach without booking three meetings first. That is a bad trade for them and, we think, a bad trade for the industry.

So the numbers are on the site

Ranges per square metre for all four sectors, on the costs page, with the inclusions and the exclusions written next to them. An estimator that updates as you change it and doesn’t ask for an email. A space planner so you know what floor area to be looking for before you start looking.

They are planning figures, not quotes, and we say so on every page they appear. Their job is to let you rule a site in or out in ninety seconds. A priced scope comes after a site assessment and a documented design, the way it should.

And the standards, in plain language

The other thing that struck us reading the category is how much of it gestures at "compliance" without naming anything. So we named things.

What the RACGP Standards ask of consulting room privacy and hand hygiene. Why a sterilisation room cannot be laid out for convenience. Which of AS/NZS 4815 and 4187 applies to you. What a change of use triggers in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. What warm shell and cold shell actually mean, and why neither term is worth anything without a written schedule.

What we do

Design and construction for medical centres, dental practices, veterinary clinics and optometry practices, across six capital cities. Site and lease assessment, test fit, design and documentation, approvals, construction, handover. The full sequence is here.

The stage where we are worth the most is the first one, before a lease is signed, when it is still free to walk away from a tenancy that can’t take your practice.

What a first conversation looks like

Send a floor plan and the draft lease. Those two documents tell us more in five minutes than a phone call does in an hour.

You will get back an indicative range for your sector and area, the specific things about that tenancy that would move it, and an honest view on whether the use change looks like a straightforward approval or a long one.

Including, sometimes, that the site will not work. We would rather tell you that early.