Corporate Architects and Facility Management

We have currently had several requests to provide other firms with electronic base plans for buildings that we have worked on in the past.  The requests present us with the question of what do we charge to provide these electronic drawings.  What have the rest of you been charging for this service?
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William Taylor AIA
William Taylor Architecture
Syracuse NY
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What's the "value" of that electronic data? - that's always the tough question. 

When the request comes from the owner (depending upon our relationship), we may give them a copy of the plans in PDF format.  If they need the floor plan for something like their internal furniture uses, we may strip everything except wall and doors - just a very basic plan.  

The advantage to getting your original plans electronically is that the other (competing?) firm does not need to build those costs into their own fee, and speeds up their turn-around for the permit submission.  For another firm, we look at what the cost would be to go out and create as-built drawings from the owner's original plan set and to pick up field changes not reflected in the plans.  The cost for the CADD files is then a percentage of that estimated cost. 

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William Valaski
CDS Associates
Cincinnati OH
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Please, will people learn that an "Fee's" is posessive and "Fees" is ploural.  What belongs to fee in this situation?

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John Hoffmann FAIA
Hoffmann Architects
Hamden CT
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-17-2011 08:02
From: William Valaski
Subject: Fee's charged for providing electronic base drawings to other firms.

What's the "value" of that electronic data? - that's always the tough question. 

When the request comes from the owner (depending upon our relationship), we may give them a copy of the plans in PDF format.  If they need the floor plan for something like their internal furniture uses, we may strip everything except wall and doors - just a very basic plan.  

The advantage to getting your original plans electronically is that the other (competing?) firm does not need to build those costs into their own fee, and speeds up their turn-around for the permit submission.  For another firm, we look at what the cost would be to go out and create as-built drawings from the owner's original plan set and to pick up field changes not reflected in the plans.  The cost for the CADD files is then a percentage of that estimated cost. 

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William Valaski
CDS Associates
Cincinnati OH
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Hello William,

At past firms we have charged the hourly cost of copying the electronic documents to the disc and the cost of the CD.  In other cases we have charged a fee that represents the time recreating the base floor plan, this was for our serious competition, not my choice. 

We have yet to run across this situation at our firm, this is probably something my partner and I should discuss.

Thanks, Rocco

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Rocco Costa AIA
Principal / Architect
Studio 2 Architecture Planning, LLC
Naples FL
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In the past when I have had to have documents requested the cost has usually been cost of materials and personnel time. On Mar 16, 2011, at 11:47 AM, William Taylor wrote: > > > > We have currently had several requests to provide other firms with electronic base plans for buildings that we have worked on in the past. The requests present us with the question of what do we charge to provide these electronic drawings. What have the rest of you been charging for this service? > ------------------------------------------- > William Taylor AIA > William Taylor Architecture > Syracuse NY > ------------------------------------------- > >