Dental fitouts in Melbourne
Surgeries, sterilisation and imaging for Melbourne practices, with the base build rate published before you ask for it.
Dental practices in Melbourne
New practices, relocations, and refurbishments staged around a clinic that has to keep trading.
Start a projectMelbourne dental practices sit mostly on suburban shopping strips, which makes almost every new fitout a change of use from retail. Parking is usually what the planning permit turns on.
On a strip shop the work usually starts with demolition of somebody else's retail fitout, and the first real question is what is under the floor covering. Slab-on-ground is the good answer, because trenching for suction, air, water and waste is straightforward. The chair positions get fixed the day that slab is cut, so the equipment schedule has to be settled before anyone documents anything.
More on what goes into a dental practice.
Fitting out in Melbourne
The strip shop is the classic Melbourne dental tenancy: good frontage, an established catchment walking past, and a planning permit that will be assessed on car parking and amenity before anyone looks at your floor plan. Suspended slabs in the newer mixed-use buildings bring their own problem, because services to a chair position have to route through the tenancy below and the landlord has to agree to it.
Approvals, not construction, are what move an opening date. A change of use from retail to a health-care use is assessed on its own terms, and council timeframes vary more than any other part of the program. How approvals work in Victoria.
Also in Melbourne
Medical centre fitouts in Melbourne · veterinary clinics · optometry practices
Parking decides more Melbourne dental projects than design does
A medical or dental centre generates a car parking requirement under the planning scheme. A strip shop with no on-site spaces needs a reduction granted, and that’s a judgement rather than a formality.
We have seen sites with the right frontage, the right catchment and the right rent fail on this alone. Worth a planning view before heads of agreement, not after, because there’s no design solution to a parking shortfall on a tenancy with nowhere to put cars.
The other Melbourne-specific item is the newer mixed-use building. Beautiful floor plates, suspended slabs, and a residential apartment underneath the point where you want to run waste from a surgery. That needs the landlord's agreement and sometimes an acoustic report, and it’s better discovered at inspection than at rough-in.
Dental fitout costs in Melbourne
Base build
Partitioning, services to each chair position, sterilisation room, joinery and finishes.
Chairs, imaging and plant are bought separately.
Specialist & orthodontic
Open bays, a heavier front of house, additional imaging and often a lab or milling area.
Referral practices carry more of the budget at the front.
Cold shell
Air conditioning, ceilings, lighting and fire services you would otherwise inherit.
More detail in the dental fitout cost guide and in dental surgery design, or check what shell condition you are actually being offered before you rely on any of it.
Imaging and licensing in Victoria
Any OPG or CBCT needs shielding designed by a radiation consultant and a management licence from the Victorian Department of Health under the Radiation Act 2005.
Shielding is designed for the specific unit, its workload and what sits on the other side of every wall, including the tenancy next door. Both the shielding design and the licence want to be underway well before practical completion, not after it.
Questions
How much does a dental fitout cost in Melbourne?
Indicatively $1,200 to $1,800 per square metre for the base build on a warm shell, excluding equipment and GST. Specialist and orthodontic practices run $1,600 to $2,400. A cold shell adds roughly $350 to $550 per square metre on top.
Do I need a planning permit for a dental practice in Melbourne?
Generally yes where the tenancy is changing from retail or office use. Council assesses it against the planning scheme, and car parking provision plus amenity impact on nearby homes are usually the determining issues.
What does an OPG need in Victoria?
Shielding designed by a radiation consultant for the specific unit, and a management licence from the Victorian Department of Health under the Radiation Act 2005.
Can we keep the practice open during a refurbishment?
Usually, by staging surgery by surgery behind temporary dust and acoustic partitions with noisy work done out of hours. It costs more than a continuous program and is often still cheaper than closing.
Keep reading
Send 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.