FAQ
The questions owners actually ask
Direct answers, including the ones where the answer is no. If a question you have is not here, call the number at the top of the page and ask it.
Send a floor plan, a lease exhibit, or a landlord work letter. We come back with a real number and the assumptions behind it.
FAQ
Questions and answers
- When is the right time to call a contractor?
- Before the lease is signed. A tenant improvement allowance is negotiated once, and it is negotiated far better against a real construction number than against a broker estimate. After the lease is executed, whatever the build-out costs over the allowance is simply your money.
- What do you need to give us a budget?
- Whatever exists: a floor plan, the lease or landlord work letter, any base-building drawings, an equipment schedule if the use is clinical or food service, and your target dates. If none of that exists yet, the address and a rough scope are enough for a first conversation.
- Do you charge for preconstruction?
- A walk-through and an order-of-magnitude budget are free. A full preconstruction engagement — line-item budget with written assumptions, constructability log, permitting map, long-lead schedule, value engineering with the trade-offs named — is a priced scope of work, because doing it properly takes real time from senior people. We credit the fee against the construction contract if you build with us.
- Who pulls the permit?
- We do, as the licensed general contractor of record, unless your lease requires the landlord’s contractor to hold it for a particular scope. Either way we handle the submittal, the review comments and the inspections, and we tell you which jurisdiction you are in and what that jurisdiction is currently asking for.
- Can you build while our business stays open?
- Yes, and most of what we do is exactly that. It means phasing agreed before the contract, rated temporary partitions, off-hours demolition, a maintained path of egress, and a fire alarm that stays in service. Off-hours work carries a premium and we show it as its own line rather than folding it into the trades.
- Will you guarantee a completion or opening date?
- No. We give you a schedule with named milestones, the dependency behind each one, and a weekly variance report against the baseline — so you always know where you stand and what the recovery options are. We will not guarantee a date, because plan review comments, utility connections and inspector availability are not within any contractor’s control.
- How do you handle change orders?
- Every change carries its cause, its cost, its schedule impact and the name of whoever authorised it, in writing, before the work proceeds. Nothing goes ahead on a handshake. Where we could not open up an existing condition before pricing, it is carried as a stated allowance rather than hidden inside a lump sum.
- Are you licensed for our county?
- Romco Builders is licensed to build in all 67 Florida counties. This site covers our home market of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, but work elsewhere in Florida does not require you to find a different general contractor.
- Did Romco Builders build the Pierre Hotel or the Hospital for Special Surgery?
- No. Those projects, along with Emigrant Savings Bank, the ADL tenant renovation, the United Nations “Arc of the Return” and 1515 Surf Avenue, were delivered by our leadership — largely in New York, before and alongside Romco Builders. It is genuine leadership experience. It is not a Romco Builders company project list, and we say so on every page it appears on.
- What is self-perform site engineering and why does it matter here?
- It means our own crews do the dewatering, support of excavation and deep foundation work rather than subcontracting it. In South Florida, where sand over limestone and a high water table are the norm, an ordinary below-slab trench can become an engineering problem. When that happens on our job it stays on our schedule instead of joining a queue at another contractor.
Next step
Ready to price your project?
Send a floor plan, a lease exhibit, or a landlord work letter. We come back with a real number and the assumptions behind it.