Commercial Restoration

What commercial restoration covers

Commercial restoration puts back what is already there and has worn out or been damaged. A storefront whose framing has rotted under the display window. An office suite with water-stained ceilings and failed flooring. A mixed-use building on a downtown block with crumbling trim and a tired rear stair. The layout and the use stay the same. If you want to change the floor plan or convert the space to a different use, that is commercial remodeling or renovation, which have their own pages.

Damaged buildings are part of this work too: a burst sprinkler line that soaked an office suite, a vehicle that took out a storefront corner, a winter that pushed water through a parapet. The approach is the same. Make the space safe and weathertight, find what caused the damage, then restore it so it looks and works the way it did before.

Our clients here are building owners, business owners who own their space, and property managers looking after a building for someone else. Each of them wants the building sound and presentable again with the least disruption to rent, sales or tenants.

We start with a walkthrough with the owner or manager, looking at the damage and at the systems behind it. The result is a written scope and price that separates urgent repairs from work that can wait, so you can plan the spending over a season or a year.

Phasing the job around a working business

Most commercial restoration happens in an occupied building. A store needs its front door open. An office needs its staff at their desks. Tenants upstairs in a mixed-use building need to get in and out. So the job is planned in phases, with each phase closed off, protected and finished before the next one opens.

That can mean working early mornings or after hours in customer areas, building temporary walls with dust protection, keeping a safe path to the entrance and staging materials where they do not block deliveries or parking. Noisy work is scheduled with the owner. Some jobs cannot be done with the business open, a full floor replacement in a small shop for example, and we say so during planning so you can choose the quietest days to close.

For buildings with several tenants, we can draft the notices you send about access, noise and parking for each phase, so the people affected hear the same plan from you that we are working from.

Each phase has a start and finish that you agree to before it begins. If something we find changes a phase, you hear it from us with the options, before a tenant has a chance to mention it.

On our jobs you have one point of contact who knows the schedule, the open questions and the money.

Codes, accessibility and the building department

Commercial work in Massachusetts is permitted through the local building department under 780 CMR, and the requirements differ from those for one- and two-family homes. Depending on the scope and the building, the work may need drawings from a registered architect or engineer. We tell you early when that applies and coordinate with the designer.

Accessibility comes into play too. Commercial buildings in Massachusetts follow 521 CMR, the Architectural Access Board regulations, as well as the ADA. Restoration work at an entrance, a restroom or a path of travel can trigger accessibility requirements, and how far they reach depends on the type and extent of the work. It is far better to know that during planning than to learn it from an inspector.

Electrical, plumbing and fire protection work goes to licensed trades, as Massachusetts requires. We schedule the inspections and keep the paperwork organized so the sign-offs are ready when the work is.

Common problems in older commercial buildings

Many downtown commercial buildings in Massachusetts towns are a century old or more, and they share problems. Storefront framing rots where water has run behind the trim for years. Flat roofs leak at parapet walls, and the water travels inside until it shows up as a stain far from the source. Brick and stone need repointing. Wood cornices lose their paint and then their shape.

Storefront glass and doors are a common restoration item. Aluminum storefront frames lose their seals, wood frames rot at the sill, and hardware wears until doors stop latching. We repair what can be repaired and replace what cannot, matching the look of the street front where the building sits among older neighbors.

Office buildings from the seventies and eighties have their own set: failing window seals, worn carpet over uneven slabs, stained acoustic ceilings hiding old leaks and restrooms that have simply worn out. Restoration fixes the damage and also the cause, because restoring a ceiling under an active leak only means doing it again next year.

Older buildings may also contain lead paint, and some contain asbestos in flooring, pipe insulation or ceiling materials. When testing is needed, it is done by qualified people before anything is disturbed, and any abatement is handled by licensed contractors before we restore the area.

One point of contact for owners and managers

On a commercial job, the part that wears on an owner or a property manager is usually chasing information. On our jobs you have one point of contact who knows the schedule, the open questions and the money. You get regular updates with photos, and when a decision is needed, it comes with the options and their effect on price and schedule.

For property managers who answer to an owner, we can format updates so they forward cleanly, with the photos, the open items and any decisions waiting. Nobody should have to translate a contractor's text message for their boss.

Changes are written and agreed before work proceeds. That protects you, and it protects the working relationship, which matters on a commercial building because there is usually more work down the road.

The site is cleaned at the end of every working day, especially in spaces the public uses. When the job is done, we walk it with you against the written scope, and the punch list gets finished before we call it complete.

See the rest of our restoration work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.