- Cost Estimating Project Phases

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So, typically as the project is starting out and you're in concept design, it's square foot based, and you're looking at comparable projects, benchmark projects of similar size, or what their cost per square foot and trying to compare that, but then as you move on into design development, you can start to look at more systems, what the systems cost, maybe, as the design has more detail, the cost estimator can really drill in to some harder bid numbers, and oftentimes, a cost estimator will actually have major trades like the structure and the mechanical systems actually bid out or advised by a sub-contractor, and then by the time you get into CDs and you're checking those prices, they're really much more reliable information because all of the detail is in your document, so you kind of build up as you go. And so when doing that, you want a little bit of a cost contingency, so maybe you'd have 10% contingency early on that might go to 5%, just to cover you if you missed anything. It's really a fudge factor and allows you a little bit of flexibility in the budget until things get further defined.

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