Engineering Cost Snafu

[GritBrews]

Hey all,

We've been quoted roughly $30K for our engineering costs to provide mechanical/electrical/engineer drawings that will allow us to obtain quotes from plumbers, electricians, and GC's for our project. We have the money to pay for this before approaching a bank. We actually have over 20% of all financing including this service for the full scope of the project but that doesn't make me any less leery. Has anyone else had to bite the bullet and pay for these support services before nailing down financing? Is there any advice on trying to go through some sort of pre-approval process with the bank before spending money on architectural and engineering services? My concern is we spend the money to try to get quotes from people and the bank in turn does not approve us for a loan.

I realize this isn't a ton of information to go on, I'm hoping a few of you have experienced this before.

Cheers,

Gman

[nohandslance]

Get Plans from original Builder

We just got got plans from our original builder and then started pasting our modification and brewery outlay.
We do hold a CA/NV GC License so we did all the work ourselves but the county and city had no problems with our
presentation.
I can coach you through our process.. What is your location?
Lance
Lancejergensen@gmail.com
775.997.6411

[Thirsty_Monk]

Engineering Cost Snafu

Keep a track what you spend on the project and bank can apply this amount to your required down payment.

And go to talk to bank as soon as possible.

[brain medicine]

have you talked to the bank yet at all? just to state the obvious- SBA/small business loans are usually nothing of the sort. they're just mortgages that are acknowledged to be used in a business venture. you're still mortgaging your house. or some other asset like the building if you own it.

the actual business itself (LLC, corp, etc) typically doesnt rate worth lending to in like 99% of bank lending profiles. they want something hard they can own- like real estate. they might give you credit for things like equipment owned, etc but typically its a piece of real estate that they will accept as collateral. not business income, or equipment, or anything like that.

just throwing that out there.

good luck.

[Ted Briggs]

That sounds really high. My last build we spent 6500$ for the GC and about 4200$ for plans. That was for a 12k sq' building that needed extensive remodeling to make it a brewery. Those are admittedly economy numbers, but even upped to 15k that's half of your quote. Caveat- its really hard to compare these things due to local laws and the physical situation. But at least get 3 quotes. And TELL them you are and that they should put forth their best number.

[a10t2]

I agree with Ted, every market is different but $30k seems exorbitant. We spent $19k total in pre-construction fees to the GC, architect, and engineers.