Stage 1: before you sign the lease
The work-letter (who builds what, who pays what) decides your budget more than any contractor quote will. Get the base building's real condition in writing: existing HVAC capacity, electrical service, washroom compliance, accessibility. A "vanilla shell" that's actually raw concrete is a five-figure surprise. If we're involved pre-lease, a one-hour walkthrough prices the gap between what the landlord says and what the space is.
Stage 2: design, landlord approval, permits (the long pole)
Drawings go two directions at once: to the landlord for approval under the lease, and to the municipality for permits. Change of use, structural work, plumbing, HVAC and accessibility upgrades under the Ontario Building Code all trigger review, through Cloudpermit for Brantford addresses or the county system for Paris and Brant County locations. Restaurants add layers: ventilation, grease, TSSA gas scopes, health-unit requirements. This stage, not construction, is usually what kills opening dates, so it starts the day the lease allows.
"Retail tenants always ask how fast I can build. Wrong question. The build is four to eight weeks; the approvals are the wild card. My job is to run landlord approval, permits and long-lead orders in parallel so the day the permit issues, the crew walks in. That parallel path is the whole difference between opening in October and opening in January."
Mitch Fraser, owner, Ontario Contracting Co.
Stage 3: the build, backward from opening day
We schedule from your opening date toward today: occupancy inspection, then finishes, then rough-ins, then demolition, each with float. Long-lead items (storefront glazing, HVAC units, custom millwork, signage) get ordered at permit submission, not permit issuance. Milestone payments, the statutory 10% holdback and statutory declarations protect you exactly as on residential work, except here they're the ONLY protections, since the Consumer Protection Act covers consumers rather than corporations, a distinction unpacked in what Ontario law already guarantees you.
Stage 4: occupancy and opening
Final inspections, the occupancy permit, landlord sign-off, deficiency list running while you stock and staff. The walkthrough happens against the written scope with the holdback in hand, and then you open. The service side of all this lives at commercial renovations in Brantford. In Hamilton, where the LRT corridor and change-of-use approvals add their own layer, it lives at commercial renovations in Hamilton.