Fit-Out Schedule Compression with a 22-Week Switchgear Lead Time
You are the owner’s project manager for a 48,000 sq ft tenant fit-out in a leased building. The baseline schedule is 16 weeks; the tenant’s lease commencement is in 20 weeks, and the lease imposes a $6,000-per-day holdover penalty after that date. The electrical subcontractor’s switchgear submittal was approved late and the confirmed lead time is 22 weeks from approval. The base-building transformer upgrade requires a four-week electrical outage window that the landlord can only make available in six weeks. The tenant has approved a change order adding two conference rooms, which adds $85,000 and nine days of work. The general contractor’s schedule shows five days of float on drywall and three days on ceiling grid. Contingency is $150,000. The tenant’s IT group needs 10 days for low-voltage commissioning after power is available.
1. Quantify the schedule gap and identify the true critical path. What does the 22-week lead time do to the 20-week occupancy date?
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The switchgear is now on the critical path. If the submittal is approved immediately, energization occurs at week 22. Add the tenant’s 10 days for low-voltage commissioning and a reasonable five days for electrical testing and closeout, and beneficial occupancy moves to roughly week 25. Against a 20-week lease commencement, that is about five weeks late, or $210,000 in holdover penalties at $6,000 per day. That is larger than the available contingency.
The drywall and ceiling floats total only eight days, so re-sequencing finishes cannot close a five-week gap. The transformer outage window in six weeks is a separate constraint: if the four-week outage does not align with switchgear delivery and testing, the delay grows. I would redraw the schedule around three milestones: switchgear approval and release, transformer outage completion, and permanent power energization. Everything else is secondary.
The conference-room change adds $85,000 and nine days, but it may not be on the critical path if it is interior work with float. I would not assume that; I would require the GC to show the change’s path impact before approving it.
2. Recommend three options to recover the date, with cost, risk, and decision criteria. Consider temporary power, expediting, and phased occupancy.
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First, expedite the switchgear. A premium of roughly $35,000–$50,000 may recover three to five weeks. The decision rule is simple: if the expedite fee is less than the holdover penalty avoided, it is economically justified. At $6,000 per day, one week avoided is worth $42,000, so a $40,000 fee that saves four weeks is a strong return, provided the vendor guarantees the date in writing.
Second, use temporary power or rental switchgear. This may cost $50,000–$80,000 for the bridge period, with risks around capacity, code compliance, and reliability for the tenant’s IT load. It is best used as insurance if the expedite slips, not as the primary plan.
Third, phase occupancy. The tenant could occupy completed areas on temporary distribution while the permanent switchgear is finished. This reduces penalty exposure but adds lease, life-safety, and commissioning complexity.
I would combine expedite plus temporary power as a fallback, align the transformer outage with the switchgear schedule, and negotiate a revised commencement date with the tenant rather than silently accepting a late delivery. The decision should be made on total cost and risk, not on the lowest individual quote.
3. How should the conference-room change order be processed, and what schedule and cost impact do you disclose?
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The change order should go through formal change control: written scope, priced breakdown, schedule impact, and tenant approval before work proceeds. Verbal approval or a field directive is not sufficient on a project already exposed to a $6,000-per-day penalty.
The $85,000 cost is straightforward. The nine days are not automatically a nine-day delay. I would require the GC to show whether the conference-room work is on the critical path. If it has float, the date impact may be zero; if it consumes float or adds procurement, it may affect completion. The disclosure to the tenant should state both the direct cost and the path impact, and it should identify whether contingency is being used.
I would also separate this change from the switchgear recovery plan. Bundling them obscures accountability. The change order should be approved on its own merits, and the schedule recovery decision should be documented separately with its own cost-benefit analysis.