Simon Pure Development (SPD) is a Licensed General Contractor undertaking whole house renovations, new construction, major additions, and significant reconstruction activities. We prefer, although do not limit ourselves, to work on projects involving older or historic properties.
We maintain a relatively small permanent staff and work in a hands-on capacity during the project. Although we focus most of our direct labor involvement in the finish work, we plan, supervise and actively manage the detail of each and every activity and subcontract. We have adopted a "no surprises" policy, under which we try to maintain complete Client awareness of cost and schedule, striving never to surprise the Client with an unexpected cost or delay.
In a typical project. We:
- Work with a client prior to contract to inspect the property, determine the scope-of-work and make recommendations regarding the renovation. Typically we do not charge for the initial meeting, site inspection, general recommendations, ballpark estimates, and advice. However follow-on efforts prior to a contract and related to the development of detailed estimates, design plans, schedules, and similar tasks are performed under a separate compensation agreement. We generally credit a significant portion of these costs to our fee upon execution of a final contract or agreement;
- Provide design services, including interior design, as desired by the client. We consider this part of our scope and there is typically no additional fee requested. This includes the development of floor plans and construction drawings to the extent necessary to obtain building permits. Where extreme detail or special architectural detail is required we will work with an architect or designer of the Client's choice. Our strong preference is to work with original materials and maintain the historic detail of the house wherever possible. We are certainly able to work with newer, higher tech materials, but prefer to carefully select these applications;
- Develop a detailed project budget identifying the scope of work, hours anticipated by SPD labor, costs of subcontract work, cost of materials, contingency factors, and SPD fee. We obtain bids in advance on major work, or where we are not reasonably certain of the costs involved. Usually on the third revision to this budget we freeze it as a Working Budget . Our budgeting is based upon our experience and upon bids obtained for major subcontracts. We rarely use regional cost guides, having found that they do not represent true costs in the type of renovation projects that we become involved in, nor represent the quality of work that we require. We compare our budgets (sanity check) to previous project budgets and costs on a square foot or other meaningful basis. Our average direct cost budget performance on our last several major projects is about 1% less than budgeted;
- Develop a detailed schedule of activities, identifying the critical path and using the schedule to avoid space and time conflicts between subcontractors wherever possible, establish milestone dates, and identify lead times for major procurement items;
- Communicate early and often. We strive for a No Surprises relationship. We report early and often, and work closely with clients, enabling them to determine the precise level of involvement they wish to maintain in the project;
- Track detailed costs. SPD uses Quickbooks to track and account for every penny spent, using nearly 100 separate accounts. We report these costs monthly in detail, and provide all receipts or copies of receipts, to the client;
- Treat each project as if it were our own. Every single house that we have renovated is one that we would love to live in. We limit the number of projects we undertake to assure maximum attention to each. We consider the effect upon resale in virtually every decision. We do our best to work clean and protect materials and the property during construction. We try not to cut corners every time we done this to save a few dollars, we have regretted it later!
- Apply for, present, and obtain all permits, including (in Chapel Hill) Planning (ZCP), Inspections (Building) and Historical (Certificate of Appropriateness). We do all interface with the Town and County, and do our very best to pass each and every inspection the first time. We schedule all inspections, being present for each if at all possible;
- Maintain the project accounting, paying and tracking all direct costs against a client account. As a courtesy, we will also pay as your agent any indirect costs associated with the project as requested by and for the convenience of the client. Indirects might include utilities, insurance, taxes, and similar costs not directly associated with the renovation. We pay on time to assure that subcontractors and suppliers will consider us as premier customers and respond to us when we need them. We do not include indirect payments in our fee calculations;
- Select and order all materials, schedule and receive delivery, and inspect the goods. We spend significant time negotiating best possible pricing and insist on using only top quality lumber and materials. A client may choose to specify product, in which case we will procure to the specification at the best possible price;
- Arrange all subcontracts, using subcontractors known to us and with whom we have experience wherever possible. We monitor their work closely during the entire process. We select our subs based upon quality of work, reliability, and cost, generally in that order. All our subcontractors are expected to pay for failed inspections of their work and to remedy the faults without additional cost.
- Participate (hands-on) in the finish work and do our very best to make it perfect.
Simon Pure Development works on a cost-plus basis, based upon a percentage of direct costs. Fee percentages are established for each project, based upon the particular size and scope. We bill fees monthly based upon costs for the previous month, or upon a negotiated fee schedule.
Our fees include all of our design and management activity, however we are compensated at established rates for any site hands-on work. These costs always appear in our labor estimates and are not additional to the budget. Our hourly rates presented in the budgets are 'all-in' rates, including payroll taxes and overheads.
For each project we establish a separate client account, and simply request our Clients to maintain their account ahead of our cash flow. Normally we can provide fairly accurate advance prediction of monthly costs to enable the client to plan his cash flow.
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