A 1,400m² co-working office build across three contiguous floors of an M1 city-centre building, plus a Cat-A+ shell prep on an unlet 4th floor — six glazed acoustic meeting pods, eighty hot-desks, fibre-to-desk, breakout kitchen and a fully isolated podcast booth, delivered in nine working weeks at a fixed price of £325,000.
A North-West co-working operator had outgrown their original Manchester location and signed a 10-year FRI lease on three floors of a refurbished M1 building, with a separate option on the unlet 4th floor. Opening day was set for the start of Q2, the marketing campaign was already booked, and the entire 1,400m² needed to land in nine working weeks from contract signature.
The brief had two layers. Floors 1, 2 and 3 needed a full Cat-B fit-out for immediate occupation: meeting pods, hot-desks, breakout space, kitchen, podcast booth, the lot. Floor 4 was being held back as expansion space, and the operator wanted it Cat-A+ ready — raised access floor, suspended ceiling, finished M&E first-fix — so they could either expand into it themselves or sub-let it on a turnkey-ready basis without having to mobilise a contractor again.
We won the work on a fixed-price tender submission with a single-team programme that ran the Cat-B and Cat-A+ scopes in parallel rather than back-to-back. Nine weeks later the doors opened. The 4th floor was let to a tenant six weeks after practical completion at the operator's modelled rent.
The procurement team had run a closed tender against three regional commercial contractors. The scope was tight, written in BCIS-compatible measured items, and non-negotiable on the key dates:
The contracted sum was £325,000 inclusive of VAT, all materials, all labour, all M&E sub-contracts and all certification. A separate £30,000 client contingency was held outside the contract and not drawn against during the project.
City-centre commercial fit-outs succeed or fail on logistics. Six things made this one demanding rather than just complex.
Glazed acoustic pods inside an open-plan workspace are the trickiest single item on a co-working fit-out. The conflict is glass walls vs sound isolation. We specified Komfort double-glazed acoustic systems to BS 8233 with 35 dB Rw rated airborne sound isolation, separate door seal compression detail, and acoustic ceiling tiles directly above each pod to break flanking transmission paths.
The building was occupied across all other floors throughout the works. Vibration-generating tasks (concrete drilling, demolition) were scheduled into out-of-hours windows agreed weekly with the landlord. Dust containment screens to the core walls and lift lobby were maintained throughout. Zero noise complaints logged with the landlord across the 9-week programme.
No external scaffolding permitted. Every kg of material entered the building through the goods lift, booked 48 hours ahead. We adopted just-in-time delivery for all bulk items — partition framing, raised floor panels, pod components — and ran a daily lift booking schedule that prioritised the floor most behind on programme.
80 cabled workstation positions plus a redundant 5G cellular failover meant two parallel structured cabling runs, separate containment trays, and a fully resilient comms cabinet with managed switches in each floor's IT closet. Cat 6A copper to desk, OM4 fibre between cabinets, with BICSI-compliant testing on every line.
The podcast booth required true acoustic isolation, not just an acoustic-rated room. We built a fully decoupled inner shell on resilient mounts, with separate floor, walls and ceiling structurally isolated from the building fabric. Result: 50+ dB Rw isolation against the open office around it. Broadcast-spec dimmable lighting and a low-velocity dedicated extract handled by a sound-attenuated fan unit.
Running the Cat-B works on three floors and the Cat-A+ shell prep on the 4th in parallel meant 1.7× the typical labour density for this building footprint. Two foremen, separate WhatsApp channels per scope, a joint daily 0800 stand-up. Material laydown areas marked out per floor, no cross-floor borrowing of stock.
Commercial fit-outs are won on programme certainty and lost on logistics failure. Our approach inverted the usual sequencing to put logistics first.
Logistics plan written before the build programme. Most contractors write a build programme and then back-fill the logistics around it. We did the opposite. The goods lift booking calendar, the out-of-hours noise schedule and the materials laydown plan were drafted before the build programme was signed off. The build programme then bent around the logistics, not the other way round.
Cat-B and Cat-A+ run in parallel, not in sequence. The default for a 3-floor + 1-floor scope is to do the Cat-B floors first and the Cat-A+ afterwards, on the basis that you can re-use the same crew. In a 9-week programme that doesn't work. We split the labour into two foremen-led teams, ran both scopes from week 1, and shared M&E specialists across both teams on a planned schedule.
Acoustic strategy designed first, not retrofitted. Acoustic performance on co-working fit-outs is almost always compromised by working out the partition build-up after the layout is drawn. We commissioned an acoustic consultant in week zero, locked the partition build-ups and the ceiling-tile zoning into the layout drawings, and built the layout to the acoustic strategy — not vice-versa.
BCO and BREEAM tracked weekly, signed off in stages. Building Control and the BREEAM assessor were both engaged from contract signature. Stage submissions every two weeks. Final assessments delivered the day after handover walk-through. No surprise remedial works, no certificates pending at the opening event.
Furniture and AV install on the critical path. The hot-desks, sit-stand bench frames, breakout kitchen and AV equipment were all on the critical path, not added afterwards. We coordinated FF&E and AV deliveries directly — not via the operator — so installation could start the day the partitions were closed up.
Nine working weeks from contract signature to opening day. Eight discrete stages, run across two parallel scope tracks (Cat-B floors 1–3, Cat-A+ floor 4).
Site setup, hoarding to lift lobby and core walls, dust-control screens. Acoustic consultant survey on existing core construction. Goods lift booking calendar agreed with the landlord and circulated to all sub-contractors. Working-hours licence variation signed for two scheduled out-of-hours weekend windows. CDM principal contractor role formally assumed.
Existing dilapidated Cat-A finishes on floors 1–3 stripped back to landlord shell condition. Floor 4 inspected against existing Cat-A drawings — gaps and remediation items captured. M&E first survey: HVAC fan coil unit positions, sprinkler layout, fire alarm zones. Asbestos refurb survey clear.
VRF HVAC indoor units installed and pipework run on all four floors. Sprinkler heads extended over new partition layouts. Fire alarm devices repositioned per new compartmentation. Structured cabling containment installed: separate trays for fibre, copper data, and 5G failover. DALI lighting bus first-fix.
Metal-stud partitions to floor layouts on Cat-B floors. Six glazed acoustic meeting pods installed by Komfort installer team in three lifts. Podcast booth box-in-box construction: resilient mounts, decoupled inner shell, isolated floor build-up. Acoustic consultant on-site verification of pod and booth flanking paths.
Raised access floor installed across the 4th floor in 600mm grid. Suspended ceiling grid and lighting installed to Cat-A+ specification. Sprinklers commissioned, fan coil units balanced and commissioned. Floor finished to a turnkey-ready condition with painted shell walls, ready for incoming tenant Cat-B drawings to overlay.
Second-fix electrical: DALI lighting commissioned, power outlets to desk grommet positions, AV power and signal pre-pulled. Second-fix mechanical: HVAC commissioned by manufacturer engineer with witnessed test report. Suspended ceilings closed up across all four floors. Cat 6A copper terminations and BICSI-compliant test reports issued per workstation.
80 sit-stand hot-desks installed across the three Cat-B floors with cable management dressed and tested. Breakout kitchen installed: four food-prep zones, commercial dishwasher, undercounter fridges, hot/cold filtered tap. AV install in meeting pods: wall-mounted screens, room-booking panels integrated with the operator's booking system. Podcast booth equipment rack populated and tested.
Final commissioning of HVAC, lighting, AV and acoustic systems. BCO inspection and completion certificate issued. BREEAM final assessor visit completed and Very Good rating confirmed. Operator's snagging walk-through with the project manager and acoustic consultant. Closure pack handed over: O&M manuals, as-built drawings, all certificates, warranty registrations. Doors opened on schedule.
A commercial-grade specification with the supporting numbers.
Six Komfort double-glazed acoustic pods (two per Cat-B floor), BS 8233 compliant, 35 dB Rw airborne sound isolation, DALI-controlled lighting, room-booking panels integrated with the operator's system.
80 sit-stand height-adjustable workstations with integrated cable management, power-and-data grommet per position, ergonomic monitor arms, acoustic privacy screens between bays.
Cat 6A copper to every workstation, OM4 fibre backbone between IT closets, BICSI-compliant testing per line. Resilient 5G cellular failover with managed switches in each floor cabinet.
Box-in-box decoupled construction on resilient mounts, 50+ dB Rw isolation, broadcast-spec dimmable colour-temperature-tuneable lighting, dedicated low-velocity extract through sound-attenuated fan unit.
Four food-prep zones, commercial dishwasher, two undercounter fridges, hot/cold filtered water tap, integrated waste sorting station, full-height splashback tiling, vinyl floor with welded seams.
DALI-controlled LED throughout, daylight-responsive dimming on perimeter zones, presence detection in pods and meeting rooms, scene presets configurable from the operator's BMS dashboard.
VRF system with individual fan coil control per zone, manufacturer-commissioned with witnessed test report, integration with BMS for occupancy-based setback. Acoustic attenuation on supply and return.
600mm raised access floor across full footprint, suspended ceiling grid with integrated DALI lighting, sprinklers extended and pressure-tested, fan coil units commissioned, painted shell walls. Tenant-ready turnkey condition.
A 1,400m² Cat-B co-working fit-out across three floors, plus a 470m² Cat-A+ shell prep on the 4th floor, all delivered inside the contracted nine working weeks at the contracted £325,000. Six acoustic meeting pods, eighty hot-desks, a fully isolated podcast booth, a breakout kitchen, and a fibre-and-5G structured cabling network. BCO completion certificate issued on day 63. BREEAM Very Good rating confirmed.
The operator opened on schedule and reached 78% desk occupancy within six weeks of opening. The Cat-A+ 4th floor was let to an incoming professional services tenant six weeks after practical completion at the rent the operator had modelled. Final account £325,000 against contract sum £325,000. No variations.
We had a hard opening date and a marketing campaign that went live the same week the doors opened — missing the date was not an option. Building Group were the only contractor in the tender who said yes to running the Cat-A+ on floor 4 in parallel with the Cat-B work below, and the only one who put their logistics plan in writing before the build programme. The pods perform acoustically exactly as the consultant specified, the podcast booth is broadcast-grade, and the 4th floor was let inside six weeks. Final account matched contract sum to the penny. We will be using them again on our next location.
If you've got a city-centre lease coming up and a hard opening date, we'll come out for a free walk-through, draft the logistics plan against the building's working hours and goods-lift constraints, and put a fixed-price commercial fit-out contract on the table that hits the date.
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