Commercial Services

Key takeaways

• Commercial jobs are governed by dates and other people’s rules — a lease, a landlord’s building requirements, and a fixed inspection sequence.
• Most build-outs can be phased or run after-hours so the business keeps trading through the work.
• Demising walls between tenants usually need fire-rated (Type X) assemblies carried to the deck, with firestopped penetrations.
• What lives above an acoustic ceiling — ductwork, wiring, and AC condensate lines — has to be right and inspected before the grid closes.
• Houston splits permitting between the City of Houston and unincorporated Harris County, and the path changes your timeline.
• Texas commercial work above a state construction-cost threshold triggers TDLR registration and accessibility (TAS/ADA) plan review.

What a commercial build-out actually involves

Commercial construction is less about any single trade and more about sequence. An interior build-out moves through a fixed order — permit and plan review, demolition, layout, rough framing, mechanical-electrical-plumbing rough-in inside the walls and above the ceiling, a round of inspections, insulation and drywall, ceiling grid, MEP trim-out, paint, flooring, fixtures, final inspections, and a certificate of occupancy. Skip a step or run two out of order and you either fail an inspection or bury work you’ll have to open back up.

The part that separates commercial from residential is that almost none of the dates are yours. A lease sets when rent starts. A landlord’s construction rules set when you can make noise, use the freight elevator, or shut down a riser. The city or county sets how long plan review takes and when each inspection can happen. A restaurant hood, a rooftop unit, or electrical switchgear can carry weeks of lead time regardless of how fast the crew works. Good commercial planning is mostly the work of naming those constraints early and building the schedule around them.

So the first job on a commercial project isn’t framing — it’s reading. Reading the permit set, the lease exhibit, the landlord’s criteria, and the existing field conditions, and reconciling the four before anyone swings a hammer. That is where a build-out is won or lost, and it is where we spend the estimate.

The services under one roof

Franco BuildWorks is a commercial construction contractor serving Houston and the surrounding communities of Katy, Sugar Land, Richmond, Fulshear, and Cypress. The core commercial services are the ones that make up the bulk of an interior finish-out, coordinated as a single scope rather than a handful of disconnected trades.

Each of these interacts with the others, which is the point of running them as one scope. Framing has to leave the right backing for the ceiling and the wall-mounted fixtures. The ceiling can’t close until the work above it is done and signed off. Paint has to happen before flooring but after the drywall is finished to the right level. When these are hired piecemeal, the gaps between them become your problem; when they’re sequenced together, they become part of the plan.

• Office build-outs — taking a shell or a second-generation space through framing, MEP coordination, finishes, and inspections to occupancy.
• Retail renovations — phased so you keep trading, with the sales floor and the work zone separated.
• Tenant improvements — built to the TI allowance and the lease, with scope shown honestly against the money available.
• Metal-stud framing — partitions, fire-rated demising and corridor assemblies, soffits, bulkheads, and in-wall backing.
• Acoustic ceilings — suspended grid and tile, coordinated with the ductwork, lighting, and sprinkler heads above.
• Commercial painting — after-hours and phased, with durable, low-odor specifications for occupied space.

Keeping your business operating during the work

Most commercial businesses cannot simply close for a month. The plan is built around that from the beginning: after-hours and overnight shifts, phasing so part of the space stays usable, sealed temporary partitions for dust and noise control, and clear access and egress maintained the entire time. Egress is not optional — a construction barrier can never block the path to a required exit, and the fire marshal will treat that as a life-safety violation, not a scheduling detail.

Occupied-space work also changes what gets specified, not just when it happens. Low-odor, fast-recoat coatings matter when staff return the next morning. Daily cleanup becomes part of each shift rather than a task saved for the end of the project. Dust barriers get sealed to the deck, negative air keeps drywall dust out of your ductwork, and floor protection covers the routes crews walk. These are planning decisions made at the estimate, not extras discovered halfway through.

The honest tradeoff is that occupied, after-hours, and heavily phased work generally takes longer and costs more than an empty box you can build straight through. We would rather tell you that up front — and let you decide whether a short full closure is actually cheaper for your business than a long disruptive phasing — than quote you the fast number and then explain the phasing surcharges after you’ve signed.

Metal-stud framing and fire-rated demising walls

Commercial interiors are framed in metal stud, not wood — it’s non-combustible, dimensionally stable in Houston’s humidity, and required by code in most commercial construction types. Straightforward partitions are the easy part. The parts that matter are the rated assemblies: the walls that separate your space from the next tenant, the corridor walls, and any shaft or occupancy-separation walls.

A demising wall between two tenants, and many corridor walls, generally has to be a fire-resistance-rated assembly — commonly one-hour — which means Type X gypsum board built to a specific tested detail, carried full-height to the structural deck above rather than stopping at the ceiling grid, and with every penetration through it firestopped with a rated sealant. This is the single most common thing we find done wrong in second-generation space: a previous build-out that stopped the demising wall at the ceiling tiles, or ran conduit and ductwork straight through a rated wall with no firestopping. It looks finished. It is not code, and it is a life-safety failure.

Framing also has to anticipate everything that hangs on or in the wall. In-wall backing — plywood or steel strapping set during framing — is what lets you later mount heavy millwork, grab bars, wall-hung fixtures, monitors, and equipment without them tearing out of the drywall. Backing is nearly free to install while the wall is open and expensive to add after it’s closed and painted, so we map it against your fixture and equipment plan before we sheet the walls.

Drywall finish levels — why “just paint it” is not a specification

Commercial drywall is specified by finish level, and the level you need depends entirely on the paint sheen and the lighting. Level 4 — tape, three coats over the joints and fasteners, and a skim over the tape — is the standard finish under flat and matte paint, which is what most offices and back-of-house spaces use. It’s a sound, cost-appropriate finish for those conditions.

Level 5 — a thin skim coat of joint compound over the entire surface — is a different animal, and it’s needed anywhere the wall will read under critical light. That means any paint with a sheen (eggshell, satin, semi-gloss), and any wall raked by light from large storefront windows or a wash of downlights. Houston retail and lobby spaces are full of exactly those conditions: floor-to-ceiling glass throwing low-angle daylight across a feature wall will telegraph every joint and fastener that a Level 4 finish leaves invisible under flat paint. Spec Level 4 there and the wall looks patchy the moment the sun is low, even though the drywall was done correctly for its level.

The mistake is treating finish level as a place to save money without understanding what it buys. We match the level to the actual sheen and lighting the wall will live under, and we tell you where Level 5 is genuinely worth it — a glass-lit reception wall — and where it’s money you don’t need to spend, like a matte-painted storeroom nobody studies under raking light.

Acoustic ceilings and everything that lives above the grid

A suspended acoustic ceiling — grid and lay-in tile — is the last major interior element to close, and that’s not an accident. Everything above it has to be finished and, where required, inspected first: ductwork and diffusers, the wiring and lighting, the sprinkler heads dropped to the right elevation, the data cabling, and the structural or seismic bracing the grid itself needs. Once the tile drops in, all of that is hidden. Closing the ceiling before the work above it is done and signed off is how projects end up cutting tile back out a week later.

One hidden risk in a Houston ceiling deserves its own mention: the air-conditioning condensate line. In this climate an AC system pulls an enormous amount of water out of humid air, and that water leaves through a condensate drain that usually runs above the ceiling. When that line clogs, backs up, or was never sloped correctly, it overflows into the ceiling — and the first sign is a brown stain spreading across your new tile, or worse, a collapsed section over your reception desk. On a renovation we check the condensate routing and the secondary drain-pan drain before we close the grid, because a stain that appears a month after you move in reads as our defect even when the real cause is a neglected drain line above the tile.

Acoustic tile also does real acoustic work, and the choice of tile matters more in some spaces than others. Open offices, medical exam rooms, and any space where speech privacy matters benefit from higher-NRC (sound-absorbing) and higher-CAC (sound-blocking between rooms) tile; a warehouse office may not need either. We match the tile to what the room is for rather than defaulting to the cheapest lay-in, and we tell you when the upgrade is worth it.

Houston’s climate and soil, on a commercial building

Houston sits on expansive clay soil that swells when it’s wet and shrinks in drought, and that seasonal movement reaches commercial buildings the same way it reaches houses. On a build-out you see it as diagonal cracks running off the corners of doors and windows, doors that bind in one season and swing free in another, and gaps opening at the tops of partition walls. Much of this is cosmetic movement that gets patched, but part of reading a space honestly is telling the difference between a cosmetic crack and one that signals the slab is moving — because drywall that we patch over active structural movement will simply crack again, and that’s a foundation conversation, not a paint conversation.

Gulf Coast humidity is the other constant, and it changes the schedule more than people expect. Drywall mud, paint, self-leveling underlayment, concrete, and adhesives all cure by giving up moisture to the air, and when the air is already saturated they cure slowly. Rushing a coating or a floor adhesive before it’s dry is a leading cause of callbacks — blistering paint, flooring that won’t bond, mud that stays soft. We plan realistic dry times into a Houston schedule and use dehumidification when the calendar can’t wait, rather than pretending the material behaves the way it does in a dry climate.

On the exterior, intense UV and a real storm season punish anything facing the weather — sealants, EIFS and stucco, storefront caulk joints, and coatings degrade faster here than the manufacturer’s temperate-climate ratings suggest. On stucco specifically, the pattern of cracking tells you what’s happening: horizontal cracks usually mean lath or floor-line movement behind the finish, while staining and efflorescence signal water getting in behind it. We read those signs rather than just skimming over them, because a cosmetic patch over a water-intrusion crack traps the water and makes the next failure worse.

Starting condition	Typically already in place	What you generally still build	Honest tradeoff
Cold / gray shell	Structure, exterior walls, roof, a stubbed utility service	Nearly everything: interior framing, all MEP, ceiling, finishes, restrooms	Clean slate, most scope; longest schedule but no one else’s mistakes to undo
Warm / vanilla shell	Shell plus basic HVAC, lighting, a finished restroom, taped walls	Your specific layout, finishes, added MEP, millwork, specialty systems	Middle ground; good if the base systems suit your use
Second-generation (good fit)	A prior tenant’s finished space close to your layout	Cosmetic updates, minor reconfiguration, branding, code catch-up	Often the lowest added scope — if the existing plan and rated walls check out
Second-generation (poor fit)	A prior tenant’s finished space built for a different use	Demolition of existing work, then new framing, MEP, and finishes	Can cost more than a shell — you pay to remove someone else’s decisions first

What actually drives the cost of a build-out

We don’t publish prices, because an honest commercial number comes from your drawings and your specific space, not a rate card. But the things that move a build-out’s cost are consistent, and knowing them lets you make informed decisions before you’re committed to a design that spends more than it needs to.

None of these is a reason not to build — they’re the levers. A big part of the estimate conversation is showing you which ones your project is pulling, and where a design change earlier lands you the same functional space for meaningfully less work. It is almost always cheaper to move a wall on paper than after it’s framed, rated, and inspected.

• Starting condition — a raw shell means you build everything; a close-fit second-generation space can save real money, while a poor-fit one costs you demolition plus new work.
• MEP scope — adding HVAC zones, electrical capacity, or plumbing rough-in is often the largest single driver; moving a bathroom or a floor drain is expensive because it means opening the slab.
• Rated and code-triggered work — fire-rated assemblies, accessibility upgrades, and health-department requirements for restaurants or medical add scope that isn’t optional.
• Finish level — Level 5 drywall, higher-grade ceiling tile, specialty flooring, and millwork scale the number up; matte paint in a storeroom does not.
• Schedule constraints — after-hours labor, heavy phasing, and short lease deadlines that force overtime or expedited materials all carry a premium.
• Long-lead equipment — rooftop units, switchgear, custom storefront glass, and commercial kitchen equipment can drive both cost and schedule regardless of crew speed.
• Landlord requirements — some buildings mandate specific systems, union or prevailing-wage labor, or their own contractors for certain work, which sets a floor you don’t control.

A realistic timeline, sequenced backward from your occupancy date

A commercial schedule is built backward from the date you need to be open, not forward from the day you sign. Working back from occupancy, the sequence is roughly: certificate of occupancy and final inspections, punch list, fixtures and equipment, flooring, paint, ceiling tile drop-in, MEP trim-out, drywall and ceiling grid, a rough-in inspection, framing and in-wall MEP, demolition, and — before any of that — permit and plan review. Each step gates the next, and several of them wait on an inspector’s availability rather than the crew’s.

The steps that most often blow a date are the ones outside the crew’s hands. Plan-review turnaround varies by jurisdiction and by how complete the submitted set is — an incomplete submittal that bounces back for corrections can cost weeks before a single wall is framed. Inspection sequencing means the ceiling literally cannot close until the above-ceiling work passes, so a re-inspection ripples through everything downstream. And long-lead equipment ordered too late becomes the critical path no amount of labor can fix.

This is why we identify the schedule risks at the estimate stage and put the honest date on paper before the contract. If your occupancy date isn’t achievable with the scope as drawn, that’s a conversation to have now — reduce the scope, phase the opening, or move the date — rather than a surprise delivered at week six when the options are gone. A date we can’t defend isn’t a date; it’s a sales tactic, and it costs you more than the truth would have.

Permits, code, and accessibility in Houston

Where your space sits changes how it gets permitted. In the City of Houston, an interior commercial finish-out generally requires a building permit with separate mechanical, electrical, and plumbing permits and a plan-review step; the trade permits are pulled under the licensed trades performing the work. In unincorporated Harris County, building-permit requirements differ and are generally lighter, but that does not mean there’s no oversight — fire-code review, on-site sewage and floodplain rules where they apply, and the state’s accessibility requirements still govern the job. Confirming the jurisdiction is one of the first things we do, because it sets the whole timeline.

Accessibility is a statewide layer that catches many owners by surprise. In Texas, commercial construction above a set construction-cost threshold must be registered with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation and reviewed for compliance with the Texas Accessibility Standards — the state’s version of the ADA — often by a Registered Accessibility Specialist, with an inspection after construction. That review covers the accessible route, door clearances and hardware, restroom layouts and grab-bar placement, signage, and reach ranges. It is not optional, and retrofitting it after the fact is far more expensive than building to it, so we flag which of these your project triggers up front.

Certain occupancies pull in their own reviewers on top of building and accessibility. Restaurants bring the health department, grease and hood systems, and often a separate hood-suppression permit. Medical and dental bring additional plumbing, sometimes sound isolation, and in imaging spaces, shielding. We tell you at the estimate which of these apply to your use, so the permit path and the scope reflect the building you’ll actually have to pass — not a simpler one that gets you a lower number and a failed inspection.

How to tell good commercial work from bad

Most of the quality on a build-out is in places you’ll never see once the ceiling and drywall close, which is exactly why it’s worth knowing what to look for while the walls are still open. Good work shows in the parts that are about to be hidden: demising walls framed full-height to the deck, penetrations through rated walls actually firestopped with red or orange rated sealant, backing installed where fixtures will hang, ductwork and condensate lines properly sloped and supported, and clean, inspected rough-in before anything closes.

Bad work hides in the same places. A demising wall that stops at the ceiling grid, unsealed penetrations through a rated wall, in-wall backing that was skipped so your monitors and millwork later tear out of the drywall, a condensate line with no slope waiting to overflow, and drywall finished to the wrong level for the light it lives under — all of it looks finished on opening day and fails weeks or months later. By then it’s your problem, and the contractor who cut the corner is gone.

The tell in the estimate itself is specificity. A serious commercial proposal references the drawings, names the finish levels and the rated assemblies, identifies the permit path, and calls out the long-lead items and the schedule risks. A vague number with no scope behind it is either a guess that will be revised upward once work starts, or an invitation to a change-order fight. Ask what finish level the drywall is, whether the demising wall goes to the deck, and who’s pulling which permits — the answers tell you quickly whether you’re talking to someone who has read your building.

Common mistakes and what fails — and why

The failures we’re called to fix on second-generation commercial space fall into a short, repeating list. The most serious are the fire-rated ones: demising and corridor walls terminated at the ceiling instead of the deck, and penetrations driven through rated walls with no firestopping. These pass a casual glance and fail a fire marshal’s inspection, and more importantly they defeat the wall’s actual purpose — slowing fire and smoke from spreading between tenants.

The most common cosmetic failures come from rushing Houston’s humidity. Paint applied over drywall mud that wasn’t dry, flooring adhesive that never fully bonded because the slab or the air was too wet, and self-leveler poured before the space was conditioned — all of these look fine for a few weeks and then blister, lift, or debond. The material didn’t fail; the schedule did, by not allowing this climate the cure time it demands. Related is the wrong-material mistake in wet or ground-floor areas: laminate flooring, with its fiberboard core, swells permanently the first time it gets wet and has no place in a Houston restroom or a ground-floor space with any flood exposure — vinyl plank, which doesn’t swell, is the honest choice there.

The quiet failures are the ones designed in before construction starts: a bathroom or floor drain moved without accounting for opening the slab, a ceiling closed before the above-ceiling work was inspected, backing skipped to save an hour of framing, and occupancy or lease dates promised without checking the permit and long-lead reality against them. Every one of these is cheaper to catch on paper than in the field, which is the entire argument for spending real time at the estimate rather than racing to a number.

How Franco approaches commercial work, and what we refer out

Our approach to a commercial project is to do the reading and the risk-naming before the contract, not after. That means reconciling the drawings, the lease, the landlord’s criteria, and the field conditions; identifying the code triggers — rated walls, accessibility, health-department, long-lead equipment — and putting a schedule and a scope on paper that we can actually defend. If the date or the budget you need isn’t achievable with the scope as drawn, we would rather have that conversation up front and help you adjust the scope, phasing, or timeline than win the job on a number we both know isn’t real.

We’re also clear about what we self-perform versus coordinate, and what belongs to a licensed specialty trade. The mechanical, electrical, and plumbing work is permitted and performed under the trades’ own licenses; fire sprinkler, fire alarm, commercial kitchen hood suppression, and elevators are specialty disciplines with their own licensing and inspection regimes, and we bring in the right licensed specialists for those rather than pretending they’re general carpentry. Where a project needs an architect or engineer of record — a structural change, a stamped permit set, a complex MEP redesign — that is a design professional’s role, and we’ll tell you that you need one rather than papering over it.

And when something isn’t the right fit for us at all — a scope, a system, or a timeline we can’t do well — the honest answer is to say so and point you toward someone who can. Telling you the truth about what a project needs, even when it costs us the job, is the standard we’d want if we were the ones signing the contract. To start, send your drawings and lease exhibit with an estimate request; the on-site estimate is a scheduled, paid appointment where we read your actual space against them.

Frequently asked questions

Can you work after hours or overnight in an occupied building?

Yes. For occupied retail and office space it is usually the only workable approach, and many multi-tenant buildings require it in their construction rules for anything noisy, dusty, or disruptive. After-hours work changes the plan in real ways — lighting, security escorts, freight-elevator windows, and low-odor materials so staff can return in the morning — so we build those constraints into the schedule and the specification from the start, not as add-ons discovered later.

Do you work from architect or landlord drawings?

Yes. Send the permit set, the landlord’s design criteria, and any tenant-improvement exhibit with your estimate request. We build to the drawings and to the lease. Where the drawings and the actual field conditions disagree — a wall that isn’t where it’s shown, a ceiling height that won’t accommodate the ductwork, a demising wall that was never rated — we raise it in writing before building rather than covering it up and billing the change later.

What types of commercial space do you work in?

Office, retail, restaurant front-of-house, medical and dental, salon and personal-service, and flex or light-industrial space. Each has its own code triggers — restaurants pull in grease, hood, and health-department requirements; medical pulls in additional plumbing and sometimes lead or sound isolation. We tell you at the estimate stage which of those your space triggers so the scope you sign reflects the building you’ll actually have to pass inspection with.

Do I need a permit for an interior commercial build-out in Houston?

In the City of Houston, interior commercial finish-outs generally require a building permit with separate mechanical, electrical, and plumbing permits and a plan-review step. In unincorporated Harris County the building-permit requirements differ and are generally lighter, but fire-code review, floodplain rules where they apply, and the state accessibility review still govern the work. The permitting path changes your timeline, so we confirm which jurisdiction you’re in before we promise a date.

What’s the difference between a shell space and a second-generation space?

A shell (or gray/cold shell) is essentially raw — often just the structure, exterior walls, and a stubbed utility service, with no interior framing, ceiling, or finished MEP. A second-generation space is a former tenant’s finished space you inherit. Shell space means you build nearly everything but start clean; second-generation can save money if the previous layout is close to yours, or cost more if you’re demoing and reworking someone else’s decisions. Neither is automatically cheaper — it depends on how well the existing conditions match your plan.

My lease has a TI allowance — how does that work with the build?

A tenant-improvement allowance is money the landlord contributes toward your build-out, defined in the lease. It is typically reimbursed against paid invoices and lien waivers, often after completion, and usually covers permanent improvements rather than furniture, signage, or your own equipment. If the build costs more than the allowance, the overage is generally yours. We build the estimate so you can see scope against the allowance early — before you’re committed to a design that spends past it.

Do you charge for an estimate?

The on-site commercial estimate is a scheduled, paid appointment, not a drive-by quote. Commercial pricing means reading the drawings, walking the space against them, checking existing MEP and rated assemblies, and identifying the code and schedule risks — that is real work, and the fee reflects it. It also keeps the estimate honest: we’re measuring your actual building, not guessing a number to win the job and revising it upward once we’re inside the walls.

Can you hit my lease commencement or rent-commencement date?

Sometimes, and we’ll tell you honestly at the estimate stage whether the date is achievable with the scope as drawn. The things that actually threaten a commercial date are predictable — long-lead equipment, plan-review turnaround, inspection sequencing, and building rules that restrict when work can happen. We schedule backward from your occupancy date and name those risks up front. If the date isn’t realistic, that is a conversation to have before the contract, not at week six.

Do commercial demising walls really need fire-rated drywall?

Usually, yes. Walls that separate one tenant from another, and many corridor and shaft walls, are typically required to be fire-resistance-rated assemblies, which generally means Type X gypsum board built to a tested detail and continued to the deck above, with the penetrations firestopped. This is not a place to substitute standard board or stop the wall at the ceiling grid. It’s also one of the first things an inspector checks, so building it right the first time is cheaper than rebuilding it after a failed inspection.

Do you handle the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing, or do I hire those separately?

On a build-out the MEP trades are coordinated as part of the project and permitted under their own licenses — that licensing sits with the trade contractors, and specialized systems like fire sprinkler, fire alarm, and commercial kitchen hoods are performed by the licensed specialty trades. We coordinate the sequence so the work above the ceiling is finished and inspected before the grid closes, and we’re clear about which portions we self-perform versus manage, so you know who’s responsible for what.

Serving Houston and surrounding areas

Franco BuildWorks LLC provides commercial construction services across Houston, Katy, Sugar Land, Richmond, Fulshear, Cypress, and nearby communities.

Related services

• Office Build Outs
• Tenant Improvements
• Retail Renovations
• Residential Services