Converting a Retail Shop to an Office
A former shop is built to sell, and an office behind the same glass needs close to the opposite. This is the building work that turns a street-level shop into a working office.
Topic
Make Good & Defit
Stripping out at the end of a lease, working around staff in an occupied space, and what make good obligations mean in practice.
Articles
Showing 1–24 of 84 · page 1 of 4
- Make Good & Defit
- Make Good & Defit
Refurbishing A Tired Law Firm Reception And Front Of House
For a law firm, the reception makes the argument before anyone says a word. A client steps out of the lift into the front of house and forms a judgement about the firm in the first few seconds, well before the meeting starts. So when that space starts to look dated, worn carpet, a tired […]
- Make Good & Defit
Combining Two Floors Of A Sydney Office Tenancy Into One: Stair Cut-In And Ceiling Reinstatement Around The Opening
When a Sydney tenant takes the floor above or below the existing tenancy and decides to put an internal stair between them, the structural cut through the slab gets most of the attention. The bigger build question, once the slab opening exists, is what happens to the ceilings on each side of it. The lower-floor […]
- Make Good & Defit
Reinstating A Plasterboard Demising Wall Mid-Lease After A Sub-Let Ends: What We Strip And Patch When The Wall Comes Out
A Sydney tenant who sub-let half their floor at some point during the lease and is now bringing the tenancy back together usually has a single visible problem: the demising wall in the middle of the floor that no longer needs to be there. The build question is what comes out, what stays, and what […]
- Make Good & Defit
Refreshing the Lift Lobby on a Sydney Office Floor: Ceilings, Bulkheads and Lighting Between Leases
Prospective tenants form their view of a floor in the thirty seconds between the lift doors opening and the agent unlocking the suite, and the lobby ceiling does more of that work than anything else in the frame. A yellowed grid, mismatched tiles and a flat fluorescent wash read as deferred maintenance before anyone has […]
- Make Good & Defit
Relocation Make Good Vs In-Place Make Good In A Sydney Commercial Tenancy: How The Choice Shapes The Scope
Make good is not one scope. The same lease clause produces a very different schedule of works depending on whether the tenant is leaving the tenancy entirely or staying put under a renewed lease. Most tenants think of make good as the thing they do when they move out. Tenants who renew often discover, partway […]
- Make Good & Defit
Reinstating Office Partitions And Ceilings After A Burst Pipe: What We Sequence
A burst pipe above a commercial office tenancy rarely stops at the ceiling line. By the time we walk the floor on the first visit, the water has usually moved through three layers of finishes. A section of suspended ceiling has come down or sagged, the partitions in the affected zone are wet at the […]
- Make Good & Defit
When The Make-Good Clock Starts: Dilapidation Schedule Timing Tenants Miss In NSW Leases
The make-good clock does not start when a tenant hands the keys back. It does not start when the dilapidation schedule lands either, although that is the moment most tenants finally notice it. In a Sydney commercial lease, the clock has been running quietly from the start of the tenancy, and the windows that actually […]
- Make Good & Defit
First Fitout In A Second-Generation Sydney Tenancy With A Retained Ceiling: What We Keep And What We Strip
A second-generation Sydney tenancy with a usable ceiling is sometimes a saved cost on the fitout feasibility and sometimes a hidden cost on the build. The honest answer to “should we keep it” depends on two things we can usually read off a walk-through in under an hour: how the grid is sitting, and what […]
- Make Good & Defit
Sequencing A Sydney Office Defit Demo Against The Next Tenant’s Fitout Start Date
When a Sydney office defit lands back to back with the next tenant moving in, the defit window stops being negotiable. The landlord has a handover date with the next tenant, the next tenant has a fitout start they have already booked their team and trades around, and the outgoing tenant’s defit has to clear […]
- Make Good & Defit
Defit Now or at Lease End: Timing the Strip-Out When You Leave a Sydney Office Early
Leaving a tenancy before the lease runs out raises a timing question: strip the floor out now while you still hold it, or leave the defit until the handback date. The answer turns on access, what the lease says about condition, and whether the empty floor is costing you more held than handed back. It […]
- Make Good & Defit
How a Property Manager Prepares a Vacated Sydney Floor for Re-Leasing: The Make Good and Refurb Works
A floor that shows well leases faster, and the gap between a stripped tenancy and a lettable one is a defined package of make good and light refurbishment works. Getting the ceiling, the floor finish and the wall lines back to a neutral, presentable state is what a property manager is really buying. When a […]
- Make Good & Defit
Lifting a Raised Access Floor at Defit and Making Good the Slab
A raised access floor that carried power and data across the tenancy has to come up at lease end if the make good calls for base building condition, and what sits under it is rarely a clean slab. Lifting the panels, stripping the pedestals and getting the concrete back to a finishable level is the […]
- Make Good & Defit
How a Facilities Manager Runs an After-Hours Office Strip-Out Without Disrupting Staff
When part of a floor has to be stripped out while the rest stays occupied, the work moves to evenings and weekends so staff arrive to a tidy, safe office each morning. Running a strip-out after hours changes how the job is staged, how dust and noise are contained, and what each shift can realistically […]
- Make Good & Defit
Removing an Internal Office Stair at Lease End and Making Good the Slab
An interconnecting stair comes out in four scopes, not one: the stair structure itself, the slab opening it passes through, the fire separation between the two floors, and the finishes on both levels that have to read as though the stair was never there. Most make good schedules compress all of that into a single […]
- Make Good & Defit
Lease-End Make-Good: Restoring Glass Partitions
Glass partitions tend to be the part of a fitout the tenant most enjoys having and the part the make-good schedule treats most aggressively at lease end. Where the original glass has been modified, damaged, or replaced through the life of the tenancy, the question at lease end is what gets reinstated, to what standard, […]
- Make Good & Defit
Shop defit: what it involves and when it’s required
A shop defit is the removal of fittings, fixtures, services, and tenant-installed elements from a leased retail or hospitality tenancy at the end of a lease, leaving the space in the condition the lease requires for handback. It is the equivalent of an office defit but with the specific scope items that retail tenants tend […]
- Make Good & Defit
When to repair versus replace glass office partitions
The decision between repairing and replacing damaged glass office partitions usually comes down to four things: what the damage actually is, whether the partition is still safe and compliant, how much of the room has to come out of use to do the work, and how much of the lease term is left. Most damage […]
- Make Good & Defit
Partial defit of office space in Sydney: when it works and what’s involved
A partial defit of an office space is the removal of a defined portion of the existing fitout while the rest stays in place, usually in response to a lease decision that does not require a full strip-out. Tenants who are downsizing within the same building, surrendering part of a floor to the landlord, consolidating […]
- Make Good & Defit
Ceiling make good reinstatement scope and requirements
The ceiling is one of the most underestimated items in a commercial office make good. Tenants walking through a premises at lease end tend to focus on partitions, floor coverings, and the obvious scars left from years of occupation. The ceiling, because it mostly just hangs there, often gets a brief glance and a mental […]
- Make Good & Defit
Partial-Floor Exits and Make Good: Subdividing Tenancies
A partial-floor exit is a lease-end scenario that catches many tenants off guard. The business is not leaving the building; it is simply handing back part of the tenancy. On paper this sounds like a smaller, simpler event than a full make good. In practice, a partial exit is often more complex than a whole-floor […]
- Make Good & Defit
Partition Relocation vs Replacement in an Office
When a commercial tenant reshapes an existing fitout, the cheapest wall is the one that already stands where the new plan needs it. The next cheapest is the one that stands near where the new plan needs it and can be moved without losing a layer of finishes. The most expensive is almost always the […]
- Make Good & Defit
Lighting Reinstatement at Office Lease Make Good
Lighting is the make good scope item that surprises tenants most often. The partitions come out, the walls get patched, the carpet gets replaced, and by that point the lighting scope is usually the only thing standing between the tenant and the landlord’s sign-off inspection. That is also the point where the scope is most […]
- Make Good & Defit
Access Control and CCTV Removal at Lease-End Make Good
Security systems are the make good scope that tenants and contractors most often discover they have not planned for. The access control readers, the CCTV cameras, the alarm panels, the cable runs back to a dedicated riser, the integration with the building’s fire system; all of these came in as tenant-added works at the start […]
Other Topics
The rest of the library.
- Costs & Planning109 articlesWhat a fitout costs, what moves the number, and how a job runs from the first site visit to handover.
- Partitions & Ceilings168 articlesGlass and plasterboard partition systems, suspended and exposed ceilings, and how each one handles noise.
- Design & Layout79 articlesPlanning a floor: how much space people need, where rooms go, and what a layout decision costs to build.
- Fitouts by Sector79 articlesWhat changes when the tenant is a medical practice, a school, a law firm or a warehouse.
- Building & Technical40 articlesBase building condition, floor loading, slab heights and services routes. The constraints that decide what can be built.
- Trades & Services42 articlesElectrical, data, air conditioning, sprinklers, flooring and joinery, and the order they have to run in.
- Approvals & Compliance37 articlesLandlord consent, building management requirements and the paperwork a fitout needs before work starts on site.
Got a Space to Sort Out?
Tell us what the space is and what you want done. We come and look, then you get the works, the inclusions and the exclusions in writing.
- 01Tell us about the spaceWe usually respond within the hour, during business hours.
- 02We visit the siteWe can usually attend site within one business day.
- 03You receive a clear written scopeThe works, the inclusions and the exclusions, priced against what we find on site.
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