Factors To Take Into Account To Ensure High-Rise Residential Development Is Predictable

High-rise apartments are a hazardous investment because of the difficulty in securing funding and the length of time required for construction. You must choose to develop before you can begin receiving rent. With so much at risk, how can you make the most of your construction team and ensure you receive the right guidance for your project?

Contractors are crucial in responding to your how-to questions and keeping the job on schedule. How much it will cost and how long it will take are the obvious questions. However, what matters more is how many units are needed. How can we reduce expenses to boost our profits? How can we save costs while maintaining the distinctive architectural elements of the building?

Throughout the construction process, a contractor provides a financial, time management, safety, and logistical plan... The project will be finished using a variety of services. Look at any website; they are all essentially the same.

While they are important, there are seven more elements that set the best apart from the others. These insights inspire creative questions that prompt the correct responses at the right time, producing projects that are predictable—exactly what every owner wants.

 

Microeconomics

As you anticipate future demand and lease pricing, your contractor should be informed of market circumstances. They should be aware of the motivations behind your activities so they can gather the relevant data and provide it to you in a manner that is advantageous to you:

DEMOGRAPHIC AND LIFESTYLE PREFERENCES OF RENTERS - The Millennial generation's need for easy proximity to dining options, entertainment, and places of work is largely to blame for the current construction boom. Urban development appeals to baby boomers as well. Each group has certain requirements for available space. Currently, there is a trend toward allocating less room for dwelling units and more space for social areas.

LEASING TRENDS: The busiest leasing seasons are the spring and summer, with activity declining in the fall and winter. It's crucial to create a strategy that satisfies or beyond this seasonal deadline.

BUILDING COMPARISONS - Your partners will be able to come up with suggestions to help position your building if they are aware of the market supply as well as the amenities, square footages, and aesthetics with which you will be competing.

MATERIAL TRENDS - Quality and on-time delivery will be guaranteed by the contractor's capacity to negotiate pricing, provide comparable alternatives, understand lead times, and stay abreast of current market conditions.

CODE, ZONING, AND PERMIT REQUIREMENTS - Understanding the rules and being aware of the appropriate local contacts enables creative problem-solving and reduces delays throughout the project's crucial permitting and occupancy stages.

Calculating an estimate conceptually

Depending on the project, owners engage us at different points throughout the design process. Others employ us once the construction papers are finished, while others work with us throughout the programming process. A general contractor's early involvement might help you prevent issues and boost the return on your investment. Contractors are essential in helping owners get finance by providing a bankable estimate.

His advice is particularly valuable in high-rise residential construction, when funding is needed to advance the project. No matter how the project is funded, accurate information is needed to meet the criteria and manage cash flow. Working with a team that can support the financial plan with sufficient information and that can also develop on it is essential. Details instill trust and prevent unpleasant surprises. To put it another way, launch take-offs to construct the scope rather than removing it.

This example demonstrates the level of information in an early budget that may help owners make choices.

 

Brand

Every construction may have Sacred Ground, which are unique features designed to give the structure personality and help with space sales. Owners are ready to sacrifice a variety of things, but they will remain.

The more familiar a contractor is with your brand, the simpler it will be for them to understand the significance of these features and what makes them special.

What does this mean, exactly? I've never been a part of a project where the original design could keep inside the allocated spending. To keep the design inside the budget, considerable research was required for each one of them.

If we are aware of the elements that are crucial and why, we can manage the cost without sacrificing the result.

For instance, the owner could be open to looking at other materials that have the same feel and appearance even while the color, size, and form of a particular design component cannot be changed. It's possible that with a little creativity, the parts that you can't see, such the mechanical systems or the support structure, can be changed.

 

Situation at work

Each webpage is distinct. Since there is no undeveloped land in the city of Chicago, every site is a pre-developed site with a foundation already in place. Since site conditions significantly affect cost and time, the contractor's expertise is essential.

For instance, one recently completed project featured a site that was enclosed on all four sides. There was an existing structure on one side, a bridge with flimsy foundations on the other, and existing utilities bordered both sides of the roads.

These incidental problems were made worse by the large foundation system that the previous project had installed within the site. Numerous wood piles, some of which were over eight feet thick, had concrete pile tops that protruded more than 80 feet into the ground.

The proposed foundation system called for the removal of the existing foundations and the installation of a costly earth retention system in their stead. Additionally risky would have been the labor.

When wood piles are removed, a process known as "squeeze" takes place in which the soils close in on the area where the wood piles had previously been. This condition could have a detrimental impact on surrounding buildings by causing excessive settling.

We came up with a design to build new foundations around the existing piles in order to lessen the risk, working with the project structural engineer. Then, transfer mats were used to support the columns. This approach not only reduced risk but also conserved resources like time and money.

Additionally, the alternate design eliminated the need for costly earth retention work by reusing an existing foundation wall on one side of the site.

 

Decision-management

Owners like to wait as long as possible before making judgments since the market, especially for interior finishes, changes so regularly. Additionally, people want to know how much of their wish list they can really afford.

Making timely decisions may make or break your ability to get the goods you need on time. The cost of delays and lulls may add up in terms of lost time and money. Finally, it can hinder your capacity to open when prospective tenants are prepared to sign leases.

How then do you know when to make a decision? Design and procurement milestones are often included in the critical path method (CPM) schedule, which shows sequential, cause-and-effect relationships between activities. A chain reaction that may be felt farther down the line can be started by a single action.

The installation date is when the CPM timeline starts, after which time is added for backup procurement, manufacture, and shipping. Allowing time for the creation and assessment of submissions is also a good idea.

The CPM schedule is helpful in keeping the contractor on track, but owners struggle to understand the connections unless they get special training. Many company owners want a cheat sheet that lists the choices that must be taken and the deadlines for making them.

We create a matrix at Pepper so that owners may view the decision dates and the justifications for each item. The data may then be organized in a number of ways after that. We may filter by priority level, reveal choices that are overdue, and emphasize decisions that need to be taken within the next 30 days. This monthly tool aids owners in maintaining focus on the most crucial decisions. Additionally, we may group things according to decision dates.

One of the last components to be installed on the construction site may be a stunning entrance canopy, for instance. On the other hand, it could be necessary to construct the electrical rough-in and structural support brackets early on so that they can be included in the concrete frame that is poured early on in the project schedule.

Other components of the canopy, such as material types, lighting, and finishes, may have a later decision date since the canopy will be installed later in the project. The decision-making process is made easier for the design team and owner by breaking down key design elements and setting up a number of "required by" deadlines.

 

Ideas

The last insight varies from project to project and is the hardest to quantify since it is typically connected to what didn't happen. It is the intangible value that must be experienced during the project and cannot be foreseen in advance. This information takes the shape of concepts that lower costs or increase the likelihood of profit.

Ideas, which might be pricey, CAN ELIMINATE UNKNOWNS. When they do, they can raise prices or reveal previously unrealized possibilities. For instance, if lake views are a selling factor, your contractor may evaluate the condition and provide you advice on how to preserve or enhance the view going forward.

When designing a new structure, laser scanning might be helpful. How?

Pepper examined the sightlines on an amenity level of a downtown Chicago high-rise project where a planned urban garden would overlook the neighboring structures. Concerned about the view, the architect and owner wanted to know what people will see once the building was finished.

The scan was finished during the programming phase. The team was able to include a screen wall feature into the design as it was being developed since it revealed an unappealing view of mechanical equipment on a neighboring roof. It didn't only enable the design team to make adjustments early on; it also prevented the owner from responding to a field situation and racking up additional expenses later on in the project.

Another concern with downtown growth is maintaining the goodwill of the neighbors. Due to the close vicinity, your construction project can turn into theirs as well.

On a prior project, Pepper had to tear down a party/shared wall and code-comply the next building. We had to take down the shared wall, which exposed the inside of the next building to the elements, weather, noise, and other variables, in order to finish our project. That implies that we would be upsetting the neighbouring company's customers.

In order to treat the neighboring business as a customer as well, our team created five different schedule scenarios, each of which sequenced work down to the day and hour. We then offered these to them for approval and discussion.

For our work plan, we created a work sequence that broke down the wall removal into manageable sections. Then, we created an hour-by-hour work plan that allowed our team to tear down the wall, construct fresh steel supports, exterior framing and sheathing, and finally waterproof the structure.

The procedure made sure that the adjoining building was never left exposed to the elements at the end of each day. The wall was entirely destroyed after 50 iterations of this technique.

Because of our capacity to collaborate with nearby businesses, we were able to find a solution that pleased everyone and prevented a scenario that may have delayed the project.

IDEAS CAN IMPROVE MARKETABILITY - Numerous publications on sustainability and energy efficiency may be found online when you search for the marketability of high-rise residential buildings. Although some of these traits have traditionally been associated with a premium, the difference is narrowing.

She inquires in her essay, "What is high performance? What was once a concern is now commonplace, according to Susan Heinking, director of high performance and sustainable construction. It just comes with the job... Clients understand that their employees are their most precious asset, therefore we must provide them with the best built surroundings in which to live, work, and play. since a startling 90% of our time is now spent inside.

To establish the benefits of including certain aspects that will enable you to market the building as environmentally friendly and efficient, it is important to do an energy or lifetime analysis.

For instance, LED lighting is now required by law. With falling prices, the differences between LEDs and fluorescent or incandescent lights are becoming less significant. PVC-free flooring, rubber bases, FFC blocking, and healthy adhesive substitutes are some further low-cost purchases.

"When I was on the design side working on a project for a huge hotel developer, I selected red list-free alternative materials that looked equivalent, and they truly had a cost savings," Susan explains. People mistakenly think that greener buildings cost more, yet this is untrue.

Any premium fees might be mitigated by higher lease rates. Instead, the appeal of these qualities could help you rent out your property more rapidly.

 

Examine the expenses

As I said before, there are seven approaches for a project's success. Cost is the last consideration, which is often given priority by company owners. There is a revolutionary technique of looking at building systems to find value and cost savings based on your goals, depending on construction and high rise planning knowledge. We could have written a whole blog post about it, and in fact, we did: we examined eight residential high-rise systems to see where we might make financial savings.