Commercial Estimating Services NYC
We provide commercial estimating services that NYC contractors, developers, and subcontractors actually rely on. We deliver bid-ready estimates for office buildings, retail buildouts, mixed-use developments, tenant improvements, healthcare facilities, and more
Our professional estimators work with current local labor rates, prevailing wage schedules for union work, and real NYC market pricing. Not generic figures that ignore this city’s conditions.
Why Most Contractors Lose Bids
Most contractors in New York don’t lose bids because their crews aren’t good enough. They lose because the numbers were off. Too high and you’re out. Too low and you’re working for free. That’s the problem we solve.
We’ve been doing commercial estimates for 15 years. In that time, we’ve built cost estimates for just about every commercial project type you can name. Office buildings in Midtown. Retail buildouts in Brooklyn. Mixed-use in Queens. Healthcare facilities on Staten Island. Distribution centers in the Bronx. We know what things actually cost here, not what some national database says they should.
NYC Commercial Construction Isn’t One Thing
It’s a dozen different things depending on what you’re building and where. Here’s what we cover:
Office Buildings
Class A towers, corporate headquarters, mid-rise professional buildings. These projects involve complex MEP systems, multiple tenant floors, and strict DOB requirements. We break it all down. Core and shell costs separate from tenant improvement costs, so your numbers are clean and actually usable.
Retail Developments
Shopping centers, flagship stores, restaurant buildouts, mixed-use retail. Good retail estimates need attention to specialty fixtures, high-traffic flooring, custom storefront systems, and the kind of line-item detail that works whether you’re bidding new construction or a gut renovation.
Hotels and Hospitality
High-end hotels and boutique properties in New York carry significant MEP complexity, premium finishes, and vertical transportation costs that can move a budget dramatically. We’ve done enough of these to know where the surprises typically hide.
Mixed-Use Projects
Residential above, commercial below, retail at grade. Mixed-use in New York means zoning overlaps, separate system requirements per use, and costs that need to be allocated correctly across the project. We handle that scope regularly.
Healthcare Facilities
Medical offices, outpatient clinics, diagnostic centers. Healthcare construction has strict code requirements and specialized systems that push costs well above standard commercial work. In NYC, you’re typically looking at $470 to $680 per square foot for medical office construction in 2026. Our estimates reflect that reality, not a national average.
Educational Buildings
Private schools, university facilities, corporate training centers. Educational projects carry specific occupancy requirements, specialized electrical systems, and acoustical considerations that need to be priced properly from the start.
Distribution Centers
Less common in Manhattan, but Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, and Long Island all have active industrial markets. Distribution center estimates have their own requirements. Loading docks, heavy-duty flooring, fire suppression, site utilities. Different animal from a Class A office and needs to be treated that way.
A Working Framework for 2026
The honest answer on commercial construction costs in New York is that it depends heavily on what you’re building. Here’s a working framework for 2026:
| Project Type | Cost Per Square Foot (NYC) |
|---|---|
| Basic Office Building | $350 to $500/SF |
| Class A Office / High-Rise | $500 to $900+/SF |
| Retail Buildout | $400 to $600/SF |
| Hotel / Hospitality | $550 to $900/SF |
| Mixed-Use Development | $450 to $750/SF |
| Medical Office | $470 to $680/SF |
| Tenant Improvement (TI) | $120 to $300/SF |
These are benchmarks, not quotes. What your specific project costs requires quantity takeoffs, site-specific conditions, and pricing from the actual New York market. That’s what we produce.
All CSI Divisions. No Exceptions, No Gaps.
Here’s what that looks like across a typical commercial project:
Core and Shell
- Structural steel and concrete
- Building envelope systems
- Curtain wall and glazing
- Commercial roofing
- Elevator and escalator systems
- Fire protection
- Base building MEP systems
- Life safety systems
Tenant Improvements
- Demising walls and interior partitions
- Commercial flooring
- Suspended ceilings
- Millwork and casework
- Commercial lighting
- HVAC distribution
- Electrical and data systems
- Plumbing rough-in
Specialty Systems
- Security and access control
- Audio/visual systems
- Building automation
- Commercial kitchen equipment
- Retail fixtures
- Signage and wayfinding
- Loading dock equipment
- Parking structures
NYC-Specific Requirements
- DOB compliance items
- Energy code including LL97
- ADA accessibility features
- Fire department connections
- Sidewalk protection
- Waste management systems
- Zoning compliance
- Green building requirements
Not Every Client Has Complete Construction Documents
That’s fine. We work at every phase, from early feasibility through bid day.
Schematic Phase
Conceptual Budget (Schematic Phase)
You’ve got a site, a program, and an idea of what you want to build. You need a number to decide whether the project makes financial sense before committing to design fees. We can work from square footage, building type, and a basic scope description to produce a conceptual budget useful for feasibility analysis and early financing conversations.
These aren’t guesses. They’re calibrated against actual 2026 New York construction costs, adjusted for building type and location. They won’t have the precision of a full estimate, but they’ll tell you whether you’re in the right range before spending $100,000 on architecture.
50 to 75% Documents
Design Development (50 to 75% Documents)
This is where a lot of projects quietly go over budget. Architects design to the program; cost discipline often comes later. By the time construction documents are done, the budget is frequently over on paper, and now you’re cutting scope or going back to the designer. That’s expensive and frustrating, and it’s avoidable.
Getting a cost check at 50% and 75% design gives the team room to make real adjustments while there’s still time. We provide trade-by-trade feedback that lets architects and developers make informed decisions before documents lock.
100% Construction Documents
Bid-Ready Estimate (100% Construction Documents)
The full estimate. Complete material takeoffs, NYC market pricing, labor costs with local and union rates applied where required, and a detailed breakdown ready for submission.
Not sure which phase applies to you? Call us. We’ll tell you honestly what level of estimate makes sense and what it can and can’t tell you at that stage.
A Working Document, Not Just a Number
A completed estimate from us isn’t a number at the bottom of a page. It’s a working document your project manager, client, or lender can actually use.
Every estimate includes:
Standard delivery runs 3 to 7 business days depending on scope. Rush turnaround is available when a deadline won’t wait.
General Contractors Don’t Produce Unbiased Estimates
They price to win the work, manage their exposure, and protect margin. That’s not a criticism of GCs. It’s just how contracting works.
If you’re putting real money into a commercial project as an owner, developer, or asset manager, you need a cost opinion from someone with no stake in who gets the contract. That’s us. We don’t build anything. We don’t sub out work. Our job is to tell you what the project actually costs based on the New York market as it exists today.
Owners bring us in for several reasons:
Before buying a property with a planned commercial buildout, you need real numbers before closing. Buyers relying on GC ballparks at the LOI stage regularly underestimate fit-out costs by 30 to 40%. We’ve seen it enough times to say that confidently.
Is the number you received reasonable for this market? What’s driving the spread between two bids you received? We can answer both questions with specifics, not guesses.
Lenders increasingly accept independent construction cost estimates as part of underwriting. Our estimates are formatted to meet those requirements, with line-item detail, scope assumptions, and contingency clearly broken out.
Your GC submitted a change order. We compare it against what the work actually costs in New York right now and tell you what’s fair and what isn’t. Owners who don’t do this pay more than they should, and it happens consistently.
If you’re a developer or owner who needs a straight answer on project costs, call us directly.
Six Steps from Plans Received to Estimate Delivered
Send Us Your Plans
Email your drawings, specs, and any project-specific details. We review within a few hours and confirm what we’re working with.
Project Assessment
We go through your drawings, specifications, and zoning requirements carefully. This is where we ask the questions that clarify scope before pricing, the ones a lot of estimators skip over to get started faster.
System Analysis
Detailed review of MEP, structural, and specialty systems. Commercial projects get complicated here. We know how these systems interact in New York buildings and what they actually cost to install, not what the spec sheet says.
Quantity Takeoff
Everything gets measured. Material takeoffs run line by line using PlanSwift and Bluebeam Revu. No gut-feel quantities, no rounded approximations.
Pricing
We apply current New York market rates across every trade. Local labor costs, material pricing from supplier data, Sage Estimating calibrated to this market. The output reflects what you’d actually pay to build today.
Estimate Delivered
You get a complete, trade-by-trade breakdown in a format you can use. Clear, organized, ready for submission.
How the Work Gets Done
For digital takeoffs, we use PlanSwift and Bluebeam Revu. Both work directly from PDF and CAD plans with measured precision. No scale guessing, no manual counting errors. Takeoffs come out as clean line-item spreadsheets.
RSMeans/Gordian is our primary cost database, calibrated to New York City and New York State. We use Sage Estimating for project-level assembly, which produces the CSI-format output that general contractors, owners, and lenders typically require.
Labor rates and prevailing wage schedules come from the NYC Comptroller’s office and applicable union agreements. We don’t pull union labor costs from a national average. We use the actual schedules in effect at the time of your estimate.
For specialty trades, particularly MEP, curtain wall, and elevator work, we supplement database pricing with actual subcontractor quotes from the New York market. Database numbers for mechanical and electrical can differ meaningfully from what a NYC sub actually charges. We cross-check before anything goes into a final number.
Built for Everyone Who Needs a Number They Can Trust
General Contractors
You’re running multiple bids at once and can’t afford to pull your own team off active work every time a new project lands. We become your estimating capacity when bandwidth runs short. Consistent format, reliable output, on deadline.
Subcontractors
Masonry, concrete, MEP trades. Wrong quantities on a commercial project don’t just affect your bid, they follow you through the job. We take the takeoff seriously because you’re the one who has to live with the numbers.
Developers and Owners
You need trustworthy numbers before committing to a project. We work through early feasibility budgets and detailed design-phase estimates as the project develops. Our cost data supports investment decisions, financing conversations, and budget management through construction.
Architects and Engineers
There’s a narrow window during design when cost input actually changes things. After construction documents are finalized, the decisions that could have saved money are already made. We work at the 50% and 75% design stages specifically because that’s where the leverage is.
Project Managers
Cost control, change order assessment, budget-to-actual tracking. Project managers use us as an independent check when they need to know whether a proposed number is reasonable or inflated.
What Keeps Contractors Working With Us
Experience in This Market, Not Just New York State
We’ve seen the cost cycles in this city over 15 years. We know the borough-by-borough differences in labor and site logistics. We understand how union rates apply by trade classification and how that shifts the numbers on commercial work. That history shows up in every estimate we produce.
Numbers You Can Actually Bid
We’ve done enough commercial work in New York to know where bids land and what holds up under scrutiny. When you get an estimate from us, you can submit it without spending an afternoon second-guessing it.
Every CSI Division, No Gaps
Some firms estimate the trades they know well and lump the rest. We cover every CSI division. No gaps, no surprises when a trade you assumed was included comes back as a separate cost.
Union Labor and Prevailing Wage Applied Correctly
New York commercial construction is heavily union. Prevailing wage requirements apply across a wide range of project types, public and private. Estimating firms that don’t apply those rates by the correct trade classifications produce estimates that are wrong before the first page.
Rush Delivery When It Matters
Standard turnaround is 3 to 7 business days. When a bid deadline is tighter than that, call us before assuming we can’t help. We do rush delivery on most commercial project types and we’ll be honest with you about whether we can hit your date.
We Work Here. We Know This Market.
1178 Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10001. We estimate New York projects from inside the New York market, not from an office that adjusts a national rate card by zip code. That difference shows up in the numbers, and experienced contractors notice it.
What Contractors & Developers Say
Their commercial estimates are incredibly accurate and detailed. Helped us win three major projects in Manhattan.
Fast turnaround and professional service. They understand NYC commercial construction costs better than anyone.
Been using their services for 2 years. Consistent quality and always delivered on time for our commercial projects.
Estimates Are Professional Opinions, Not Guarantees
They’re based on the best available information at a specific point in time. Anyone promising 100% accuracy on commercial construction estimates in New York either hasn’t done many or isn’t being straight with you.
Prices move. Subcontractor availability shifts between bid day and contract award. Field conditions appear after demolition begins. Scope changes during design. These are realities of building in this market.
Here’s how we handle them:
Scope shifts during the estimating process are covered. If the project scope changes after we deliver an estimate, we revise. That’s included in the service.
If significant time passes between your estimate and bid day, especially on steel, copper, or specialty equipment, we flag it. Material pricing in New York moves enough over six months to affect your margin on a trade package. Don’t submit a stale estimate without checking with us first.
Every estimate comes with a written assumptions and exclusions document. If something is assumed, it’s written down. If something is out of scope, that’s written down too. Nothing left open to interpretation.
Our estimates are built to be competitive and defensible. Not just low. The lowest number in the room is sometimes the contractor who comes back with change orders. We price what qualified commercial construction in New York actually costs, with contingency that reflects real risk, so the number holds through the job.
All Five Boroughs & the NYC Metro
Serving general contractors, subcontractors, developers, architects, and project managers across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, Long Island, and New York State.
Common Questions
The questions we get from contractors, developers, and owners most often. If yours isn’t here, call us directly.