- Judge a contractor on completed projects of your type, not on company size or years alone.
- Ask for the surety letter and the insurance certificate, not a promise that they exist.
- How a contractor estimates, reports and handles change orders tells you how the job will feel.
- Bids are comparable only after scope, allowances, exclusions and schedule are lined up side by side.
Start with your project type
A commercial general contractor is not a single trade. Ground-up retail, a restaurant finish-out, a dental office and a convenience store remodel call on different subcontractors, different inspections and different habits. The first question is not how large the company is or how long it has been in business, but how many projects of your type it has completed and how recently.
Ask to see them. Photos and addresses of completed work of the same type let you visit, look at the finish quality and, if you like, speak to the tenant. A contractor with real experience in your category can describe the problems that usually come up on it before you ask. Look through a contractor's project list with your own project type in mind.
Fort Worth and the wider Dallas-Fort Worth area contain many cities, and each one has its own permit office, inspectors and expectations. A contractor who has permitted and built in the city where your space sits will know what the package needs to contain and who to call when a review stalls.
Bonding, insurance and registration
A bonded contractor can provide performance and payment bonds from a surety that has reviewed its finances. Ask whether the contractor is bondable for a project of your size and request a letter from the surety. If your lease or lender requires a bond, confirm it before you shortlist, not after.
Insurance is documented, not described. Ask for a certificate of insurance showing general liability, workers' compensation and automobile coverage, and ask that your business and the landlord be named as additional insured once you sign. Check the policy dates and the limits against what your lease requires.
Licensing and registration requirements for contractors differ by state and often by city. Ask what the city where your project sits requires for a project like yours and confirm the contractor holds it. If the contractor cannot answer that question quickly, that tells you something on its own.
How they estimate, and how they report
Two contractors can look at the same drawings and produce two very different numbers. The difference is usually in method. Ask how the estimate is built: a detailed take-off with subcontractor pricing for each trade, or a square-foot figure adjusted by feel. Ask to see a sample estimate from a past project with the costs by division, so you know what you will receive.
Ask how pre-construction is handled. A contractor who offers due diligence, conceptual estimating, value engineering and a constructability review before the drawings are final can save you design fees and change orders later. A contractor who only prices finished drawings leaves those savings on the table. Our pre-construction page describes what that work covers.
Then ask about reporting during construction. How often will you receive a written progress report? What will it contain: schedule status, budget status, open decisions, photos? Will there be a regular progress meeting, and who attends? Electronic reporting on a fixed cadence is the sign of a contractor who manages rather than reacts.
The subcontractor bench
A general contractor builds very little with its own hands. The quality of your project is the quality of the subcontractors on it, and the schedule is only as reliable as their commitments. Ask which trades the contractor has worked with repeatedly, how subcontractors are qualified before they bid, and whether the crews that built the reference projects would be available for yours.
Ask also how the contractor handles a subcontractor who falls behind or walks off. The answer should be specific and calm. A contractor who has never had to replace a trade mid-project has either been lucky or is not being candid.
Change orders: ask how, not whether
Every commercial project has change orders. The question is how they are handled. Ask the contractor to walk you through the process: who identifies the change, how it is priced, what documentation you receive, who approves it and when the work proceeds. Ask what the markup on changes is and whether it is stated in the contract.
The red flag is not the existence of change orders. It is a process where changes are discovered on the invoice. A good contractor prices a change, explains it, gets your written approval and only then builds it, and keeps a running log you can see at any time.
References, communication and close-out
Ask for references from owners of the same project type, finished recently. Call them. Ask what went wrong on the project and how the contractor handled it, because every project has something, and the handling is what you are buying.
Ask who your day-to-day contact will be and how reachable that person is. A project manager who answers the phone and a superintendent who is on site every day are worth more than a polished presentation. Read how the contractor describes its own approach and compare it with what the references say.
Finally, ask what you receive at close-out: as-built drawings, warranties, operation and maintenance manuals, the final inspection reports and the certificate of occupancy, and lien waivers from every subcontractor and supplier. A contractor with a standard close-out package has finished enough projects to need one.
Red flags
- A price given before anyone has seen the space or the drawings.
- Reluctance to provide the surety letter or the insurance certificate.
- No written process for change orders, or a markup that is not in the contract.
- References that are all from a different project type, or none that are recent.
- One person who is the estimator, project manager and superintendent for every job.
- Pressure to sign quickly, or a price that is only good this week.
- An unwillingness to discuss what went wrong on a past project.
Comparing bids that are not apples to apples
When several bids arrive, the lowest number is rarely the lowest cost. Bids differ in what they include. Before you compare prices, line up the scope. Build a simple table with each bid in a column and the major trades and items in rows, and mark what each bid includes, excludes, carries as an allowance or assumes the owner will provide.
Pay attention to allowances. An allowance is a placeholder for an item not yet selected, such as flooring or lighting, and a low allowance makes a bid look cheaper while moving the cost to later. Pay attention to exclusions: permit fees, utility fees, equipment hookups, low-voltage, signage, furniture and landlord-required items are the ones most often left out. Pay attention to schedule and general conditions, because a shorter schedule is also a saving to you in rent.
When the table is complete, ask each bidder to confirm or correct your reading of their bid. The bidder who answers clearly and quickly has just shown you how the project will go. A contractor that offers commercial general contracting with pre-construction will often help you build that comparison, because a clear scope protects them as much as it protects you.
Questions owners ask
Should I just take the lowest bid?
Only after the bids have been leveled so that scope, allowances, exclusions and schedule match. A bid noticeably lower than the others usually has something missing, and the missing item returns as a change order. The lowest leveled bid from a qualified contractor is a sound choice. The lowest raw number is not.
What do bonded and insured actually mean for me?
Insured means that if a worker is injured or your property is damaged during construction, the contractor's policies respond rather than yours. Bonded means a surety has reviewed the contractor and will step in to complete the work or pay subcontractors if the contractor fails. Ask for the documents, not the phrase.
Do I need a contractor based in Fort Worth?
Not necessarily, but you need one that has permitted and built in the city where your project sits and has subcontractors who will show up there. Dallas-Fort Worth is a large region with many jurisdictions, and knowledge of the local permit office and inspectors shortens the schedule.
When should I bring the contractor in?
Before the drawings are finished. A contractor who joins during design can price options while they can still be changed, flag constructability issues, build the long-lead list and set a realistic schedule. A contractor who only sees finished drawings can only tell you what they cost.
