Florida
The Slab Is the One Thing You Cannot Do Again
Flatness and levelness are decided by placement and finishing on a single day, by one crew, in that morning's conditions. Afterwards nobody can improve them without grinding. A tenant will forgive a great deal and will not forgive a floor their equipment cannot work on — so it gets specified in numbers and measured, not described.
The geotechnical report, the intended clear height and the likely tenant profile. Those three tell us more than a full set of drawings.
Four places account for most South Florida roof leaks. None of them is the middle of the roof.
The slab
The one element a tenant judges on, and cannot fix
Self-perform
Dewatering and deep foundations in house
Commodity
Fire protection designed to what is actually stored
Licensed
General contractor, licensed in the state of Florida
What we build
What we build
Six industrial types. Each has one requirement that dominates the budget — each page names it.
Distribution Warehouse
The standard big-box warehouse. Four variables decide almost the entire budget, and they interact with each other.
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Light Manufacturing
A building shaped by what happens inside it. Power, compressed air, process drainage and ventilation are the project; the shell is comparatively simple.
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Cold Storage
The most technically demanding industrial building, and the one where an ordinary warehouse approach fails outright.
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Flex & Office-Warehouse
Warehouse with an office component, built speculatively for tenants who do not exist yet. The flexibility is the product.
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Last-Mile & Delivery
A modest building on a site doing an enormous amount of work. Vehicle parking and circulation are the project.
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Cross-Dock & Truck Terminal
Freight in one side and out the other, with almost no storage. The building is narrow, the door count is high, and the yard is most of the project.
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What decides the cost
What decides the cost
The slab, fire protection, clear height, the truck court and the ground. Cheap decisions early, expensive ones late.
The Slab
The floor is the element tenants judge a warehouse by, and it is produced in a single continuous operation that cannot be repeated.
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Fire Protection
The sprinkler system is determined by what is stored and how high it is stacked, which is information a speculative developer does not have.
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Clear Height
Clear height has risen steadily and it is not free. Each additional foot costs across several systems and only earns it back if the market racks that high.
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Docks & Truck Court
Door count, court depth and pavement design are set by the vehicles that will use them, and getting the depth wrong is not fixable.
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Ground Conditions
Industrial buildings cover an enormous footprint, which means whatever is wrong with the ground is wrong across all of it.
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The difference
How we work
The slab is the building
A tenant will forgive a lot and will not forgive a floor their equipment cannot work on. Flatness and levelness are measured, specified and achievable — and they are decided by placement and finishing, which are decisions made on one particular day that cannot be revisited.
Fire protection follows what is stored, not what is drawn
The sprinkler design is determined by commodity classification and storage height. A building sprinklered for a general assumption and then leased to a tenant storing plastics needs a system upgrade, and that is a very expensive way to find out.
We self-perform the ground
Florida industrial sites are frequently wet, and dewatering and deep foundations are where schedules are lost. We do that work ourselves rather than subcontracting the largest risk on the job.
We will tell you the clear height will not pay for itself
More height costs money in wall, column and sprinkler design, and it only earns it back if the market will actually rack that high. On some sites it does and on some it does not, and we will say which.
Start here
Send us the site and the program
The geotechnical report, the intended clear height and the likely tenant profile. Those three tell us more than a full set of drawings.
If the ground will not support what the design assumes, we would rather say so before the height is fixed than after the budget is.
FAQ
Common questions
- Can slab flatness be corrected later?
- Only by grinding — expensive, disruptive and partial. It is specified in numbers and measured.
- What decides the sprinkler design?
- Commodity classification and storage height, which come from the tenant. A speculative building is making an assumption.
- Can sprinklers be upgraded later?
- Yes, in an occupied building, expensively, and usually as an argument about who pays.
- How much clear height should we build?
- What your submarket actually racks to. Extra height multiplies across wall, structure, foundations and sprinklers.
- Can truck court depth be added later?
- No. It is the one dimension that genuinely cannot be, and doors nobody can reach are worse than no doors.
- Do you self-perform below-grade work?
- Dewatering and deep foundations, yes. On a Florida industrial footprint that is the largest schedule risk.
- Will you price without a geotechnical report?
- Not below grade. It is the largest source of change orders in the sector.
- Why is cold storage so different?
- The vapour barrier, the refrigeration plant and under-slab heating. An ordinary warehouse approach fails outright.
Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.