Commercial Interiors and Office Design
Offices, tenant improvements, church and community facilities, and the test fits that come before any of it. I have produced tenant-improvement and lease preconstruction documentation, which is a useful way of saying the drawings hold up when somebody with a checklist reads them. Tenants and building owners work with me from anywhere in the country; the drawings travel, and so does the code work behind them.
Based in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Working throughout the United States through a remote-first process; on site in the Arkansas River Valley, Northwest Arkansas and Oklahoma.
What’s included
Test fits and space planning, drawn against the actual lease outline
Tenant improvement design and construction documents
Church, fellowship hall and community facility interiors
Accessibility review: routes, clearances, restrooms, door hardware
Permit sets and responses to plan review
Lease preconstruction documentation and submittal packages
How it works
One. Test fit before you sign
The most expensive commercial mistake is signing a lease for space that will not hold the program. A test fit takes the landlord’s outline drawing and puts your actual headcount, conference rooms, restrooms and circulation into it at scale. It answers whether 4,200 square feet is enough at the point where you can still walk away. This is the single most portable thing I do: send me a PDF of the outline and your headcount and you have an answer in days, wherever the building is.
Two. Space planning into design
Once the space is right, we work the plan: departments and adjacencies, daylight, acoustic separation, what gets built out and what stays open. Occupant load drives egress, and egress drives more of the plan than most tenants expect. Two exits or one changes the whole layout, and that is a calculation, not an opinion.
Three. Documents that clear plan review
The permit set carries the accessible route at 36 inches clear, 32 inches clear at door openings, 60 inch turning circles where they are required, restroom fixture counts, and the fire and life safety work that goes with the occupancy classification. This is the part where a licensed architect is worth the fee: the set is drawn to the code the reviewer is going to hold it to, and I read the amendments your jurisdiction has actually adopted rather than assuming the base code.
Four. Through construction
Submittals, RFIs, punch. Tenant improvement schedules are short and unforgiving, and the general contractor needs answers the same day. I stay reachable.
Where I work
Test fits, space planning, documents and plan review responses are all done remotely, over video, with the drawing on screen. Contractor coordination during construction runs by phone and video, which for a fast tenant improvement schedule usually beats waiting on a site visit. For projects in the Arkansas River Valley, Northwest Arkansas and Oklahoma, I walk the space myself. Elsewhere, we scope site coverage up front: scheduled trips, or a field representative we agree on before the build-out starts.
On licensure
I am licensed in Arkansas. For a project in another state, licensure and reciprocity are confirmed for that specific project before anything is drawn, and where the state requires it, I coordinate with a local architect of record. That gets settled in writing at the start, not discovered at permit.
Frequently asked questions
What is a test fit and why would I pay for one before I have a lease?
A test fit is a scaled plan of your program dropped into a specific space, usually one or two options, done quickly. It tells you whether the suite works, roughly what the build-out involves, and where the awkward parts are. Compared to the cost of a five year lease on a space that does not fit, it is the cheapest drawing you will ever buy. It is also the easiest thing to do at a distance, because everything I need is the outline drawing and your headcount.
Do you handle church and community buildings?
Yes. They are a real part of the work: fellowship halls, classroom wings, sanctuary renovations, accessibility upgrades to buildings that predate any of the current requirements. These projects usually run on a committee and a budget that has to be defended publicly, so I document options and costs in a form a board can actually read, and I will sit in on the board meeting over video to walk through it.
Can you do this if my building is in another state?
Yes, and it is a normal engagement. The drawings, the code review and the plan review responses are the same work regardless of where the building sits; what changes is the adopted code, the local amendments and the submittal process, and establishing those is part of the job. Licensure and reciprocity get confirmed for your project before I start, with a local architect of record coordinated where the state requires one. On-site walkthroughs are standard in the Arkansas River Valley, Northwest Arkansas and Oklahoma, and scoped in advance everywhere else.