“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets planning.” – Thomas Edison

Building and renovation can be an overwhelming process for doctors and those in the medical field, but it doesn’t need to be. Of the many things to consider, cost remains top of mind for everyone, whether it’s their first or their tenth location. Managing your expectations, getting clarity, and being realistic is key to enjoying the journey. Join us as we break down how to gain clarity with costs and what to consider by diving with us in this blog. Let’s start!

1. Key Foundations

   As all foundations are, they go into the core of the project itself – these foundations are meant to find clarity and intentionality to build a truly successful medical spa. Success is never left to chance; it is a mindset and being in the right mindset is a guarantee to building a world-class medical spa. You need to know your purpose and to get a handle on WHY you are opening your practice. Finding clarity helps you frame your mission and vision for what you want to achieve and it also frames your outlook for growth for the immediate future of say 5-10 years.

   When the vision is clear you need to polish a brand that reflects your medical spa’s messaging. Branding can be applied through graphics, logos, on your website, and tying it in with your interior design is a way to bridge a cohesive online and offline experience for your patients. By building this united front where what is seen, what is heard, and what is experienced creates a consistent message, to develop trust and loyalty between you and your patients.

   Speaking of trust, you also need to define who your audience is. Your target market defines what kind of branding you will have because they need to be tailored to appeal to them. Identifying the consumer of your services affects cost by managing what are the promises and expectations to be provided for. Building a glamorous, upscale med spa is considerably going to cost more than a regular one. Knowing yourself and your audience alone already accounts for definitive cost considerations that should be taken into account from the get go. Be clear about it and you will navigate cost evaluation with more grounded and realistic eyes.

2. Elements of cost

   Various factors can impact the cost of building your medical office. Getting acquainted with them as early as now gives you a head start on how much budget to allocate, and how it will influence your business goals. Rather than arbitrarily coming up with a figure, we recommend almost reverse engineering your budget by listing down all expected costs working back from the opening to the hiring of your professional team.

   1. Timeline
      When do you plan to open your medical spa? While it is true that the faster you open a med spa the faster that revenue can come in, we urge you to be more realistic and reasonable on your timeframe because it can drive down costs. An expedited time frame just puts more pressure into the entire process needlessly paying for more manpower, more fees, more planning time spent, more costs to handle materials which needlessly bloats the capital expenditure.
   2. Square Footage
      Getting a handle on how you allocate your square footage is part of dealing with costs and pushing for a successful medical spa. How much is needed to support your goals? This process of Architectural Programming asks you to assign 60-70% of the space for revenue generation and the rest for support spaces. That systematizes the space planning and optimizing it to make the most of every available real estate. You also need to factor in spaces that can be earmarked for growth in the foreseeable future. Prepare for 30-50% growth in the next 3 to 5 years.
   3. Custom Requirements
      Details are also ways where cost can stack up. Simple modifications like a hidden trash bin entail slight changes in otherwise run-of-the-mill cabinetry construction. But details are meant to satisfy larger problems like reducing clutter, improving workflow, and maximizing the floor space. Details are also about craftsmanship, executing a specific design to match with the larger design intent.
   4. Materials
      Materials matter for patient experience and choosing what kind of materials to choose is a value decision that any owner needs to align with the vision. Quality materials are not determined by cost but by their value. Value is not just in its outright price, it’s what they bring to the equation. It’s not about choosing the most expensive material, it’s about how essential is this material to deliver the effect that you are going for. From this qualitative assessment can you then make more informed decisions about value engineering them to fit the budget. to say that a space is upscale, you need to make decisions based
   5. Scope of Work
      Making clear about the extent and scale of the project affects the amount of work needed and the cost to complete it. Determine the type of process you want to undertake to range as follows in increasing degrees of work.
      1. Minor renovations which propose changes of finishes, some repainting.
      2. Major renovations involve a full makeover of bare space.
      3. White shell working with a new space which is usually completely bare.
      4. Ground-up or new construction of a building.
      5. Furniture and accessories are a slight intervention that works with removable items like furniture and accessories for styling purposes. We lovingly call this the “icing on the cake” which is also what we usually do for our design clients in the days leading to the opening of the space.

3. The Simour Cost Opinion Process

   The Simour Cost Opinion Process summarizes all expected expenses that a project will have going into all the details even ancillary expenses that may go unnoticed like hauling, material handling, and the like. Going through all the details like this is meant to increase awareness about what the construction process is fully about and to set the expectations, so it creates no more surprises for any owner. Information can be gathered piecemeal over time through research and thorough consultation with the professionals involved. COP is another mechanism that builds clarity about the journey you are about to undertake which gives you awareness and sets the expectations just right so you will have no more surprises.
   Categories that can affect the cost are as follows:

   1. Is the site Leased or Purchased
   2. Project Type
   3. Project Size
   4. Project Location
   5. Hard costs like the construction itself.
   6. Soft costs like Professional fees.

Once you understand how costs are derived for the building or renovation process, you get an understanding of the value and how it aligns with your vision. It drives you to be more realistic with your expectations and more intentional about making decisions for the project. Give us a call at (310) 359-1200 or drop a consultation request here and let’s get started. We wish you great success and an enjoyable journey ahead!