- A tenant improvement (TI) — also called a build-out or fit-out — is any customization that turns a leased commercial space into what a specific tenant needs: walls, flooring, lighting, HVAC, a full interior buildout.
- A TI contractor is legally a general contractor, but specializes in renovating occupied and leased buildings — which means as much people-coordination (tenant, landlord, property management) as construction.
- The process runs in four phases: assessment and design, permits and pre-construction, construction inside an occupied building, and final inspection, punch list, and closeout. Permitting is usually the longest line item in South Florida.
- Who pays depends entirely on the lease — a turnkey delivery, a TI allowance (dollars per square foot), or tenant-funded for lower rent. Get real construction pricing before you sign, not after. Construction typically runs 4–16 weeks plus permitting.
- In South Florida the building itself is a variable: older buildings face milestone inspections and 40-year recertification, and coastal spalling or corrosion should be fixed before the build-out — ideally by one contractor who can evaluate the base building and deliver the interior.
In This Article
You've just signed a lease — or you own a space and need to ready it for a tenant. Either way, the leased shell isn't the finished space. Walls need to go up, ceilings need to drop, HVAC needs to reach every room, and the front door needs to look like it belongs to the business inside. That work is different enough from new construction to have its own name, its own process, and its own pitfalls.
This guide explains what tenant improvements are, what a TI contractor actually does, how the process works in South Florida (including the parts that always surprise tenants), and what to look for when choosing one.
What Is a Tenant Improvement (TI)?
A tenant improvement is any customization made to a leased commercial property for a specific tenant — new walls and partitions, flooring, lighting and ceilings, HVAC, plumbing, a reception area, or a complete interior buildout of an empty shell. The work turns a space that was built for occupancy in general into a space that works for one business in particular.
The terminology varies by context: tenant improvement and leasehold improvement are the formal and accounting terms; build-out is the common term in retail; fit-out or tenant finish turn up in office and landlord conversations. They all describe the same category of work.
How a tenant improvement allowance works. In many leases the landlord contributes money toward the work — a TI allowance, usually expressed as dollars per square foot. If the build-out costs more than the allowance, the tenant pays the difference. Because the allowance is negotiated into the lease, it pays to understand your construction costs before you sign, not after.
What Does a Tenant Improvement Contractor Do?
A TI contractor is a commercial general contractor who specializes in renovating occupied and leased buildings rather than building from scratch. The license and legal responsibilities are the same — but the environment is completely different.
New construction happens on an empty site. TI work happens inside a building that has other tenants occupying adjacent spaces, a property management company with its own rules about access and hours, and a landlord with a financial stake in how the project goes. A good TI contractor manages design coordination, permit filings, demolition, trade subcontractors, and inspections — while keeping noise, dust, and disruption off the neighbors and answering to three parties at once: the tenant, the building owner, and property management.
That coordination load is what distinguishes tenant improvement work from a straightforward renovation. The construction skills are the same; the people skills are different — and they matter just as much.
Tenant improvement contractors spend as much time coordinating people as they do managing construction.
— New Age Construction Group
The Tenant Improvement Process, Step by Step
Most commercial projects of this type follow four phases.
Assessment, planning & design. The contractor walks the space, confirms scope, and works with the tenant and architects on layout — walls, ceilings, flooring, lighting, electrical, HVAC. Budget and schedule take shape here. Design-build delivery gives you a single point of contact and usually a faster timeline than separating design and construction.
Permits & pre-construction. Interior alterations require permits, and local knowledge matters: in Miami-Dade and Broward, permitting runs through each municipality, most structural and MEP work needs signed and sealed drawings, and specialty trades are often permitted separately. ADA compliance and current building codes apply the moment you touch the space. Pre-construction also covers ordering long-lead materials and scheduling subcontractors.
Construction in an occupied building. Demolition, then rough construction, then finishes — but sequencing matters as much as the work itself. Noisy demo may be limited to evenings and weekends by lease or building rules. Dust barriers protect neighboring tenants. Deliveries move through whatever loading access property management allows. Good scheduling here is what keeps the project on time without creating tenant-relations problems.
Final inspection, punch list & closeout. The municipality inspects the permitted work, the contractor walks the completed space with you for punch-list items, and closeout wraps with permit sign-offs, lien releases, and as-built documentation. Then you get the keys — or a certificate of occupancy, if the use changed.
Common Tenant Improvement Projects
TI work spans a wide range of commercial uses. Office build-outs typically involve partitions, conference rooms, break rooms, and the technology infrastructure modern workplaces expect. Retail and restaurant spaces require customer-facing finishes, specialty lighting, and — for food service — commercial kitchen equipment, hood ventilation, and grease trap work. Medical suites add exam rooms, specialized plumbing and mechanical, and compliance with healthcare building standards.
Industrial and warehouse spaces often need office make-readies, dock upgrades, and code compliance for a new occupancy type. Mixed-use and multi-family projects layer in ground-floor commercial units where condominium-association approvals can sit on top of city permits — adding a step most contractors outside the condo market don't anticipate.
Scope ranges from a light cosmetic refresh to a complete gut-and-rebuild of a raw shell, and everything in between. The common thread is that the work happens inside an existing building with existing constraints — structural, mechanical, and regulatory — that a good TI contractor investigates before a proposal goes out.
Budgets, Allowances, and Timelines
Who pays for what depends entirely on the lease, and there's no universal rule. In a turnkey delivery, the landlord funds and manages the build-out and delivers a finished space. In a TI-allowance deal, the landlord contributes a negotiated dollar-per-square-foot amount and the tenant manages construction, covering anything above the allowance. In a tenant-funded arrangement — common when the tenant negotiates lower rent in exchange — the tenant pays entirely. Each structure has its own risks: the critical one is committing to an allowance before you have real pricing from a contractor who has walked the space.
How long it takes varies, but the industry range is roughly 4–16 weeks of construction after permitting. In South Florida, permit timelines are typically the schedule's longest single line item — municipalities vary significantly, and signed/sealed drawings for each trade add time. Long-lead mechanical and electrical equipment, high-volume HVAC work, and after-hours-only construction all push the number. Work in occupied buildings takes longer than the same scope in an empty one.
What South Florida Buildings Add to the Equation
Here's the part most guides skip: in South Florida, the building itself is a variable that affects a tenant improvement project's schedule, scope, and cost in ways that don't show up in a lease or a floor plan.
Older buildings — particularly condominium and cooperative buildings three stories or taller — face Florida's mandatory milestone structural inspections at 30 years from the certificate of occupancy (25 years for buildings within three miles of the coast), and every 10 years after. Miami-Dade and Broward add 40-year recertification. If required structural repairs intersect with your planned build-out — shared walls, affected areas, disrupted systems — those repairs shape the project. Find out before you build, not after walls are already framed.
Sometimes the building needs work before the build-out does.
Salt air corrodes rebar, and spalling is common in coastal buildings — no interior renovation should sit on top of an unresolved structural problem. If a pre-construction walk turns up cracked slabs, water intrusion, or deteriorated concrete, fix it first: concrete restoration before the build-out costs far less than tearing out new finishes to reach the same problem later. One team that can evaluate the base building and deliver the interior beats two contractors pointing at each other.
How to Choose a Tenant Improvement Contractor
Verify the license and insurance first. Florida requires a certified general contractor (CGC) license for commercial renovation work — verify it on the DBPR website, and ask for current certificates of liability and workers' compensation insurance before anyone gets on site. New Age holds CGC#1531273. A commercial contractor should also be able to show permits recently pulled in your specific city — not just the county, because each municipality has its own process.
Then look for occupied-building experience in your specific market. Ask what they've completed in buildings like yours — same county, same building type, tenants in place during construction. References from property management companies carry more weight than references from tenants alone, because property management sees how a contractor actually operates in the building.
Before you sign a contract, ask these five questions:
The pattern in the answers matters more than any single one — listen for specifics like cities, timelines, and named references rather than reassurance.
- 1Understand your build-out costs before you sign the lease — the TI allowance is negotiated into the lease, and overages come out of your pocket.
- 2Hire for the environment, not just the license: occupied-building coordination (noise, dust, after-hours work, three-party project management) is a learned skill that separates a smooth build-out from a painful one.
- 3In Miami-Dade and Broward, permitting is usually the schedule's longest line item — signed/sealed drawings, separately permitted trades, and ADA/code compliance apply the moment you touch the space. Hire a contractor who works your specific city every week.
- 4Check the base building first: if it's approaching 40-year recertification, or a pre-construction walk turns up spalling, water intrusion, or deteriorated concrete, fix it before the finishes go in — far cheaper than tearing them out later.
- 5Vet with specifics: verify the CGC license and insurance, ask for recent permits in your city and references from property management (not just tenants), and listen for named cities, timelines, and references over reassurance.
Stephanie Lopez
Owner, New Age Construction Group
Stephanie Lopez is the owner of New Age Construction Group, a state-licensed general contractor (CGC#1531273) providing commercial construction, structural restoration, and tenant improvement work across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach County.
Frequently Asked Questions
Planning a build-out in South Florida? New Age Construction Group is a state-certified general contractor (CGC#1531273) providing commercial construction services in South Florida across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties — with the structural expertise to handle what older buildings throw at a project.
