Warm shell or cold shell?
Two words in a lease that decide more of your budget than every finish you will ever choose.
Fitout guides
Twenty-three guides for people about to commit money to a tenancy, in the order a project actually meets them.
Numbers where we have them, the reasoning behind them, and the parts other people leave out. If you want the reasoning behind publishing any of it, it is on the about page.
Start here · Before you sign
Practice Vantage: check the suburb before you sign for it
A free tool that reads any Australian catchment in about thirty seconds: the practices already there, the people they serve and where the gaps are. What it shows, how to read it, and when to use it.
9 min read
If you’re not sure where to start
Warm shell or cold shell?
Two words in a lease that decide more of your budget than every finish you will ever choose.
5 min readWhat a fitout costs
Indicative ranges per square metre for all four sectors, with inclusions and exclusions.
CostsAS 1428.1 explained, for people fitting out a clinic
The access standard that rules more tenancies out than any other, and what it actually asks for.
9 min readBefore you sign
What to establish about a tenancy while walking away is still free.
How long does a practice fitout take?
Construction is the short half. Here is where the rest of the time actually goes.
Make good, and what it costs to leave
The clause nobody reads until the last year of the lease, and the one that decides whether you leave with money or write a cheque on the way out.
Lease incentives, and what a fitout contribution really buys
Rent-free periods, cash contributions and landlord works are not the same thing, and they are not worth the same to you.
Buying a practice: what to check about the building
The accountant reads the numbers and the lawyer reads the contract. Between them sits a tenancy nobody has assessed, and it is the part you cannot renegotiate later.
What you need to open a medical practice in Australia
Everything that has to be true before you can see a patient, in the order it has to happen, and which items sit on the critical path.
Practice Vantage: check the suburb before you sign for it
A free tool that reads any Australian catchment in about thirty seconds: the practices already there, the people they serve and where the gaps are. What it shows, how to read it, and when to use it.
A medical practice business plan: the numbers a lender actually reads
What goes in a business plan for a new medical, dental or allied health practice, in the order a bank reads it: the catchment, the capital budget, the revenue model, the break-even, and the risks you name before they do.
Practice management software: choosing it, and what it means for the fitout
The Australian systems for general practice, dental, allied health and veterinary, cloud against a server in the cupboard, what each choice costs, and the cabling, power and room decisions that have to be made before the walls close.
Costs
What the work costs per square metre, and what moves the number.
How much does a dental fitout cost?
Per square metre, what sits inside that figure, and the four things that move it more than finishes do.
How much does a medical centre fitout cost?
Rates for general practice, specialist rooms and day procedure, and why the three are not comparable.
Strip out and defit, and what it costs
The job at the end of a lease, or the one before a new fitout starts. Priced badly more often than any other trade package.
What it actually costs to open a dental practice
The fitout is roughly half of it. Here is the whole number, including the parts that surprise people in the last month before opening.
How practices fund a fitout
Four ways the money usually arrives, what each costs you in control, and the question a lender will ask that most applicants have not thought about.
Approvals
The certificates between a signed lease and an open practice.
Do I need a DA for a medical centre?
Usually. Here is how the approval works in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, and why it’s the part of the program that moves your opening date.
Complying development certificates, for a clinic
The fast lane through NSW planning, when your tenancy qualifies. And the trap of assuming it does.
Construction certificates in NSW
What it is, when you need one, who issues it, and why it isn’t the approval most people think it is.
Occupancy certificates, and when you can legally open
Occupancy certificate, occupation certificate, occupancy permit. One document, six names, and the last thing standing between a finished fitout and a working practice.
Building permits and planning permits in Victoria
Two separate approvals from two different people, in a fixed order. Most delays in a Melbourne fitout come from treating them as one thing.
Development approvals in Queensland, and the Brisbane City Plan
Material change of use, four levels of assessment, and a planning scheme that decides all of it before you have drawn a room.
Can you run a practice from a house?
Sometimes, and the answer turns on a definition rather than on the building. Here is what the planning system actually permits.
Compliance
The standards that decide whether your practice can open and stay accredited.
What the RACGP Standards ask of your building
Accreditation is mostly about how you run a practice. A handful of it’s about the rooms, and that handful is expensive to retrofit.
Designing a sterilisation room that passes
One direction of travel, no crossing back. Everything else in the room follows from that.
AS 1428.1 explained, for people fitting out a clinic
The access standard that rules more tenancies out than any other, and what it actually asks for.
Ambulant toilet requirements
Not the same thing as an accessible toilet, triggered by different rules, and routinely left out of a fitout until the certifier asks.
NCC building classification, and which one your clinic is
Every building in Australia sits in a class, the class sets the rules, and changing use changes the class.
What is a Class 9a building?
The health-care classification, what triggers it, and why it should be settled before you sign a lease rather than during documentation.
AS 1668.2 and clinical ventilation
Why the base building air conditioning that suits an office frequently cannot serve a clinic, and what to check before you sign.
Negative pressure rooms
What they’re, when a clinic actually needs one, and why they are engineered rather than specified.
AS 3745 and emergency planning for a clinic
Evacuation diagrams, wardens and the obligations that start the day you occupy, not the day you build.
AS/NZS 4815 or 4187, and which one applies to you
Two reprocessing standards, two very different rooms. Practices routinely design to the wrong one and find out during accreditation.
Fire ratings and fire separation in a fitout
What an FRL actually means, which walls need one, and why the cheapest way to fail an inspection is a hole somebody drilled after the wall was signed off.
Backflow prevention in a dental or medical practice
A clinical practice is a high hazard connection to the town water main. That single classification sets the device, the space it needs and an annual testing obligation.
Ramps and accessible approach, without the guesswork
The gradients, the landings and the reason a ramp that looks fine gets rejected. Access is what rules out the most tenancies, and it is decided at the front door.
Lighting levels for a clinical space
How much light a consulting room actually needs, why the number on the design is higher than the number in the standard, and the two things that matter more than lux.
Design
How the rooms themselves get set out.
Designing a veterinary clinic
Noise, separation, drainage and the small rooms that owners wish they had planned for.
Dental surgery design
The room itself: where the chair goes, what reaches it, and the decisions that are fixed the day the slab is cut.
How many rooms fit in your floor area?
The arithmetic that decides whether a tenancy works, done before you sign rather than after the architect has been paid.
Impact noise, and the tenancy below you
Drop tables and dropped weights send sound through the structure, not the air. It is the one acoustic problem that cannot be fixed from the other side.
Medical centre design: the principles behind a practice that works
How a general practice or medical centre is set out: the patient path, consulting room sizes, the waiting room, treatment and reprocessing, staff space, and the standards that decide most of it.
Contracts
The vocabulary in a building contract, and where it costs you.
Provisional sums, and why two quotes are not comparable without them
The line in a building contract that makes a cheap quote look cheap.
Practical completion, and what it actually triggers
Not when the building is perfect. When it’s usable, with a list attached.
The defects liability period
Twelve months in which things that only show up in use get fixed, and the retention that makes it happen.
Design and construct, or design then tender?
One contract with one party accountable, or two with a competitive price. On a clinical fitout the answer leans one way more than people expect.
Progress claims, variations and retention
The three mechanisms that move money on a fitout, and the three places a practice owner loses control of the budget without noticing.
Or use a tool
Fitout cost estimator
Four questions and a number that moves as you change them. Nothing gets sent anywhere.
EstimatorHow much space do I need?
Count the rooms you want. It adds the support spaces and the circulation.
Space plannerFitout glossary
Warm shell, make good, Class 9a, provisional sum. The words that turn up in a lease or a contract.
GlossarySend us the floor plan
A site assessment tells you what the tenancy can take and what it will cost to get there, ideally before you have signed for it.