COST GUIDE
Commercial electrical tenant improvement cost per sq ft
WHY THE RANGE IS WIDE
Square footage is not what drives electrical cost
Electrical cost follows load and density, not area. A lightly furnished office and a medical imaging suite of the same size can differ by several times, because one needs a few receptacles per room and the other needs dedicated equipment feeds, special grounding and possibly a service upgrade.
The second big driver is what is already there. A second-generation suite with a sound panel and reusable lighting costs far less than a cold dark shell that needs everything from the meter in. An inherited panel that turns out to be full or undersized can move the number just as much.
That is why any per-square-foot figure without a use, a condition and a location attached is close to meaningless. The rest of this page explains the drivers, so you can see which ones apply to your space before you ask for a number.
The biggest cost drivers
- Whether the existing service has enough capacity
- Shell condition: cold dark, warm shell or second generation
- Equipment load and the number of dedicated circuits
- Lighting quality and the controls the energy code requires
- Low-voltage scope and who is installing it
- After-hours work and building rules
WHAT GOES INTO THE NUMBER
The cost components of an electrical TI
Service and distribution
Panels, transformers, feeders and any service upgrade. Often small on a second-generation suite and the largest single item on a heavy-load tenant.
Branch power
Receptacles, dedicated circuits and furniture feeds. Scales with the number of workstations and pieces of equipment, not with area.
Lighting and controls
Fixtures, emergency lighting and the controls the energy code requires. Fixture selection alone can swing this widely.
Low-voltage
Pathways and backboxes at a minimum, or full structured cabling, access control and AV if they are in the electrical contract.
Fire alarm
Device relocations and additions, frequently required to be done by the building’s fire alarm contractor.
Soft costs
Engineering, permit fees, utility charges, after-hours premiums and closeout documentation.
BUDGETING STEP BY STEP
How to budget before you have drawings
01
Define the use
02
Find out what is there
03
List the heavy equipment
04
Check the service early
USING A RANGE HONESTLY
What a per-square-foot figure is good for
A per-square-foot rate has one legitimate use: a first-pass feasibility check, before there is a layout, to decide whether a space is worth pursuing at all. Used that way it is genuinely helpful.
It stops being helpful the moment it is used to set a budget you will be held to. Two projects with the same rate can be far apart once the equipment and the existing conditions are known, and the difference always surfaces later as a change order.
We will give you a planning range on a call if you need one for an early pro forma — and we will also tell you what it assumes, then replace it with a line-item estimate as soon as there is a layout to count from.
Get a real number instead
- Send a rough layout, even a hand markup
- Tell us the use and the equipment you plan to install
- Share photos of the electrical room if you can
- Give us the target occupancy date
- We return a line-item estimate with allowances marked
- Most estimates come back within three business days
COMMON QUESTIONS
Electrical cost questions
We can give a planning range once we know the use, the shell condition and the location, along with what it assumes. It is useful for feasibility, not for a budget you will be held to.
A service upgrade, heavy equipment loads, high-end lighting, full low-voltage systems and after-hours work are the usual drivers. Any one of them can outweigh the effect of square footage.
Usually, when the existing panel and lighting can be reused. Not always — an overloaded panel, undocumented wiring or lighting that must be brought up to current energy code can erase the savings.
We list them separately. Permit fees are set by the jurisdiction and utility charges by the utility, so we show them as their own lines rather than hiding them in the total.
Much better than a per-square-foot figure. We mark any allowances for items that are still undefined, so you can see where the number could still move.