What would one get for that extra $300 or so? “There is a wide bend. And I’d say once you’re above that $650, you’re talking about, either extremely small square footage in terms of scope of work or a completely different product: trading floor, hedge fund, etc.
“So for $300 you may be spending $200, $225 in construction and that’s going to get you a high quality office fit out. It’s going to get you a mixture of glass office fronts and then some back of the house areas for janitorial or mail services. It’s going to get you conferencing and it’s going to get you an open work area. Additional to that $225, you’re going to be spending anywhere from $10 to $15 per square foot on professional fees, maybe a little more. And then for a furniture package, you’re going to spend anywhere from $25 all the way up to $50. And then lastly, your technology products, which cost… anywhere from $10 a square foot up to $25 per square foot.”
Monteiro largely agreed with the assessment: “If you’re in the $225, $250, $275 construction cost range, even to $300, there’s some trading floor elements to it, some higher end finishes. You’re getting the meeting rooms, the breakout spaces, things of that nature. And then when you go completely above that, then you’re starting to talk more custom spaces, you know, custom millwork, custom stone, more of like amenity feel space within the office space.”
What does going all out mean?
Levy then turned the discussion to lighter fare, asking each of his guests to describe the most exorbitant element they’ve seen put into an office or other space.
“A few years back,” McNamara recalled, “a financial client, to cover up the columns and their office space, they had the specialty millwork that looked like the trunk of a tree. So all the column wraps look like tree trunks going through. Just the cost to find the people to actually install this – we were fighting back and forth because we were having budgetary issues, but I think each one costs about a quarter of a million dollars to wrap the column.”
Source: mpamag.com