Commercial building cost per square foot calculator
Work out what a commercial building will cost from the square footage and the rates you set. A single price per square foot is misleading, because it usually covers the core and shell, the structure, envelope, roof, and base systems, and not the interior fit-out that makes the space usable. Site work, design and permit fees, and a contingency sit on top of both. The calculator keeps them apart so the all-in number per foot is honest.
Typical range $2,090,189 – $3,657,830
- Core & shell (area × rate)$1,500,000
- Interior fit-out (area × rate)$600,000
- Site work & utilities$60,000
- Soft costs (design, permits, fees)$259,200
- Contingency$193,536
- Total$2,612,736
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$500,000 to $3 million covers a typical retail, office, or light industrial building with fit-out, site work, and soft costs carried. Get itemised bids by division.
What this assumes, and where it could be wrong
Every one of these is a place the number could be off. They are here because you should be able to check our working, not because we are hedging.
A SINGLE PRICE PER FOOT USUALLY MEANS SHELL ONLY.
Building type moves the rate further than square footage does. Two buildings of the same area can be priced very differently: a pre-engineered warehouse shell is light on structure and systems, while a medical, lab, or restaurant space carries heavy mechanical, electrical, and plumbing loads and a stricter code path. That is why both rates are yours to set, because the same area can sit at either end of the range depending on what the building has to do.
Site work is a separate project sitting under the building. Grading, drainage, the parking lot, and bringing water, sewer, gas, and power to the pad are priced off the parcel, not the floor area, so they do not scale with the building the way the shell does. An infill lot with utilities at the curb is inexpensive here; a raw parcel that needs a lift station, a long service run, or extensive earthwork can add a large share of the build.
Soft costs and contingency are real money, not padding. Architecture and engineering, permits and impact fees, surveys, testing, and project management are charged on top of the construction, and a commercial build reliably turns up something the drawings did not show. Carrying a contingency is how the project absorbs that without a change order fight, and a budget presented without one is a budget that has not been finished.
The defaults are ours and are a starting point. The area, the shell rate, and the fit-out rate are yours, and the estimate turns most on the building type, the local labour market, and how much interior work is in your scope rather than the tenant's.