Site search and feasibility

Almost every expensive surprise on a clinical fitout was knowable before the lease was signed. Not most of them. Almost all of them.

Floor loading, hydraulic access, ventilation capacity, accessible entry, parking provision, whether the use change is a straightforward approval or a nine-month one, and what the landlord is actually handing you. Every one of those can be established in advance, and every one of them becomes your problem the moment you sign.

The industry doesn’t usually get involved at this point, because there is no construction contract at the end of it and often no client. We think that is exactly why it is worth doing properly.

What we look at

Can the services get where they need to be?

Every clinical fitout needs water and waste at points of care, and the question isn’t whether the building has them but whether they can reach your rooms. On slab-on-ground that means trenching, which is straightforward. On a suspended slab it means core-drilling and a route through the tenancy below, which needs the landlord's agreement and sometimes the neighbour's.

Then electrical capacity. Imaging, autoclaves, compressors and mechanical plant add up, and an incoming supply upgrade is a long-lead item that can outlast the entire construction program.

Can the structure take it?

Where imaging is involved this is an engineer's answer rather than an opinion. Floor loading on a suspended slab has three possible outcomes: yes, yes with strengthening, or no. It takes days to establish and it can save you a lease.

The delivery route matters too. A machine that can’t get through the door, into the lift or around the corridor is a problem that surfaces on delivery day.

Is it accessible?

An accessible path of travel from the street, through the entry, along circulation, to an accessible sanitary facility, with a reception counter usable from a seated position. This is the requirement that most often rules a tenancy out entirely, particularly older stock and anything above ground floor without a compliant lift.

What is the approvals pathway?

Whether your use is permitted in that zone, what approval the change of use requires, and whether it’s likely to be straightforward or contested. Parking is frequently the deciding issue and there’s no design solution to a tenancy with nowhere to put cars.

Warm shell or cold shell?

Worth $350 to $550 per square metre, and routinely left vague in a heads of agreement. We ask for a written schedule of base building services rather than accepting either label.

What you get

• A test fit: a concept plan showing whether the rooms you need fit the space you are considering
• An order-of-magnitude budget against that plan, with the shell condition stated
• A risk list: the specific things about that tenancy that would move the number or the program
• A view on the approval, and what it is likely to hinge on

Enough to negotiate a lease with, and enough to compare two tenancies honestly.

Comparing sites is where this earns its keep

Two tenancies at the same rent and the same floor area can differ by six figures once shell condition, services access and the approvals pathway are priced. None of that appears in a leasing brochure, and an agent is not the person to ask.

If you’re weighing up two or three sites, that’s the version of this work worth doing.

Sometimes the answer is no

We would rather tell you a site won’t work than build you a compromised practice in it. It is a strange thing for a construction business to lead with, and it’s the whole reason this page exists.