question for Michael Jones about $/sq.ft.

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kristian

kristian

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I was wondering what your cost/sq.ft. was for building in Austin and if you had any good websites or other information on building. I am not going to be building but just curious as to what costs are like for studio construction versus home/commercial/industrial. I found a good bit of information at A&M's website. It quoted average $/sq.ft. respectvely like this.

Industrial - $8
Commercial - $21
Home - $80

Whereabouts does studio construction on your scale come around? For people with less flex in the bank account, what is a $/sq.ft. ratio that would work for non vaulted ceilings and gigantic rooms?
 
Ya know what.?
There should be a whole other catagory for "Studio Construction".
It is an animal into and of itself.
It is unlike any of the previous 3 you mentioned, and here's a few examples as to how:

How many houses, office buildings or warehouses have:
Double walls?
Isolated rooms?
Staggered studs?
Insulation at 3 - 6 lbs/cu.ft.?
3 layer wall surfaces?
Interior doors that could almost serve as bank vaults?
Acoustic treatments for specific modal responses? In each room?
Dedicated grounds on outlets in a specific room?
16' ceilings?
Dual speed isolated HVAC systems?
Enhanced lighting for all rooms?
Audio connections terminating at wall plates?

I could go on, but you get the idea. All of those items drive up the construction costs significantly. And its not just the material; material is the cheapest thing going, labor costs increase as well. (Imagine if you paid a sheetrocker to basically rock your walls THREE TIMES!)

If you had someone give you a turn-key studio, from the ground up, you could be well over the $100/sq. ft. cost range, and probably closer to $120 by the time your playing music in the control room.

Even for a modest sized studio, $120/sq.ft is outside of the means of just about anyone on this board.
So what can you do to bring this dream closer to reality?

Assuming we're talking about ground-up construction, YOU can act as the general contractor, and contract out - to the shopped around best deal, all of those things that you can't do on your own.
For me, that included, foundation, plumbing, roofing, electrical, and HVAC.
Everything else, I'm doing myself.

For the ceiling, I used engineered trusses. I would have done that had I had a vaulted ceiling or not, and they're really not that expensive, so its doubtful you'd see much of a cost saving with a flat truss.

When its all said and done, my 1200 sq.ft. studio will cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-$60/sq.ft.

It'd be like adding a pool and a clubhouse to your property. It's just that my "clubhouse" is wired to the gills, and, umm... there's no pool.
;)
 
kristian,

Intersting numbers.......... I think someone is doing some very good drugs.......

I can't build a dog house for 8 bucks a square foot.... never mind industrial construction.

According to Means 2004 construction costs..... making an adjustment of the median for Austin Texas of (weighted average) 79.6...... PLease note - i have used the higher of the figures in Means due to the fact that the median number does not include any site work - which of course is always a big part of the costs associated with this work. These costs do not include the costs associated with property purchase - design or surveying, special state or local permitting or any of the costs associated with the entire approval process.

I would also point out that these numbers are inline with what our company tends to pay for projects of this nature.

I show Austin numbers in the left column - national numbers on the right.

Industrial (factories) 66.87 psf (84 psf)

Commercial:

Offices (Low Rise Buildings) 92.34 (111)
Department Stores 56.52 (71)
Warehouse and Storage buildings 49.35 (62)


I do not deal in residential work any more - but our residential sister company reports that costs for entry level housing is around 100 and upwards from there for high end.

We run about 2.5% above the nation in CT - so the national should be around 97.75psf and adjusted for Austin - 77.81.....

SO the only number that ws in the ballpark was the residential.

FYI - in our area - (seeing as this is a studio forum) a world class recording studio (this does not include the building cost to house it in just the cost of the room within ithe room itself) was about 170.37 psf not including any low voltage wiring for the gear. That number is in 1994 US Dollars

Rod
 
Good points Rod.
On the "Industrial" and "Commericial" costs, I had assumed Kristian was talking about "finish-out" costs, and those numbers are pretty much in line with what you'd find here in Austin.

The residential costs he mentioned tend to be in line more with the "starter home" costs here.
 
I wish I could find the report again, but it is hard sifting through the history in my browser for a few specifid pages. I wonder what their $/sq.ft. measured since the report's and Rod's numbers are so far off. Anyway, this was the sort of information I was looking for. Thanks.
 
kristian said:
I wish I could find the report again, but it is hard sifting through the history in my browser for a few specifid pages. I wonder what their $/sq.ft. measured since the report's and Rod's numbers are so far off. Anyway, this was the sort of information I was looking for. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Kristian,

It confuses me as well - especially seeing as they are right on the money with residential construction.

Look at the picture they're painting though - to think that i could build an industrial building - my factory (minus equipment of course) and get 4,000 sf for only $32,000....... new construction costs?......... hell - no one could ever sell an existing building if they could build that cheap.

It's absurd on the face of it.

So either it is a fit out cost - after the building is done with construction - or it's a typo.

Same thing with the commercial building - fit out or typo.

I don't know - but i do know that this is what i do for a living - and if i could figure out a way to bring budgets in for those kinds of numbers I could retire in 2 years with the profits i would earn.

Rod

here's an example of what you can have if you want to give me 180 psf (Not including any gear or the low voltage wiring of course)
 

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I don't have all that experience with building. But I have landscaping and drainage system experience. I have two brothers who are equally competent with tools and manual labour. One of them is an engineer and he is building a house in the upcoming months. I also have a friend who just graduated from UT and has been working at the studio on campus and is interested in studio/music business. So we have 4 guys who all think manual labour is fun when planed out right. I don't think I will build anything in the next year or ever if the proper situation doesn't present itself. However, It is always nice to have things to think about. Between applying to jobs, applying for graduate school or thinking about trying to go into music I just like having information.

p.s. - I have been checking out your progress since the beginning. I haven't been involved at John's site really just lurking and snaging a couple .sdr drawings to study to learn. I know most people here have the same ideas, since i was 14 with my Yamaha 4-track I wanted to have a real studio. Studio Building and Display and John's site get most of my attention in the past year. I just don't really find the same mic-pre/mic/recorder/soundcard questions too informative anymore. Sometimes I pop in to try to put some reasoning into people buying $1000 soundcards for their first ever recording experience. I've tried a bunch and settled in a price/preformance point that is mobile enough for someone in an apartment who records remotely for other people or sometimes in his closet. It is the little step up that interests me. There was actually a studio centrally that closed down last year. I can't remember what it was called, but it was on 42nd and Guadalupe. I am not sure if land tax killed it, but it was the perfect location. The guy never let me in though to look. He probably thought I was going to scope the situation for a break in or something. I will keep lurking.
 
You can build a real nice studio for that money - but not what I built.......

Our profit margin on that project was only about 15 psf. Nothing to retire on. (about 40,500 for 8 months of our lives)

Actually that particular studio is about 2700 sf and is a world class studio.

4 iso booths - 2 large ones (drums and strings) which can open into the main room, PLus a medium and small vocal booth.

24' ceilings in the main room, a large tech room and a great wiring room behind the control room.

The control room is on an elevated slab that is 14 to 20" thick with a vault below for future wiring access to the board.

This is the ultimate "room within a room" sitting inside a building of reinforced concrete block construction - tall enough that you can completely walk on top of the studio built within it. (Remember - the 170 did not include that structure - that building was an additional 640,000 and also has support space for the studio and office space for the company)

A low temperature underslab heating systems is installed and the HVAC system can run full tilt in any room while recording without noise problems.

Humidification/dehumidification systems were installed to maintain humidity levels =/- 1.5 %.

All in all it's a hell of a studio - and can house a 60 piece orchestra. 75 if they really like each other......

Rod
 
No one records a 75 piece orchestra in their homestudio! Scope!

scope n. - 1. The range of one's perceptions, thoughts, or actions.
 
kristian said:
No one records a 75 piece orchestra in their homestudio! Scope!

scope n. - 1. The range of one's perceptions, thoughts, or actions.
Click to expand...

True.
I bet I could get 8 orchestra type musicians in my LR. And that's WITH an 8' grand.

;)
 
kristian said:
No one records a 75 piece orchestra in their homestudio! Scope!
Click to expand...

Kristian,

LOL...... not suggesting that - however i am suggesting that one can spend to acheive (in one's home studio) the level of quality and design that exists in that studio.

As i work on my home studio over the next few years - all of the construction techniques and custom design components of that studio will exist in mine.

My main room is about the same size as the drum room in this studio - with the same capacity for ceiling height - so i am building the room (with slight modifications to make it suitable for more than just drums and bass. (About 336 SF - 4200 cf) and my investment as designed will be about 70 psf with me doing all of the work.

That doesn't include low voltage wiring - which will be the only thing I subcontract out. I am going to have that done by the tech who did this one - he does beautiful work.

My control room however will suffer terribly in comparison as i don't have the room to make it large enough to really do it right - so i will settle for less in that case.

75 piece orchestra in my home - no way - but i can get 9 or 10 pieces in there....... just about enough for the brass section i want to add to the band......... :D :D :D

Rod
 
Kristian,

you've gotten tremendous feedback, so my comments this round will be limited.

First, building a "home studio" in a room (or basement, or attic, or garage loft) is very different than building from scratch, and also very different from building out commerical space, or another house you buy down the road. The per foot costs will vary WILDLY between all three scenarios.

For example, my garage loft studio, which is 20ish x 13.5ish square feet, has cost me in materials, approximately $5500 thus far, including the joint compound I haven't applied, the track lighting, paint and moulding, all of which is not applied as of yet.

Another $300 for the vocal booth, another $200 for the vocal booth door and another $500 for incidentals like moulding, $300 in ebay-purchased auralex foam, and I'm up to about $7000.

So 20 x 13.5 = 270 sq feet, into $7000 comes out to a hair over $26 or $27 per square foot just eyeballing it without a calculator being handy.

10 years ago, I had a professional recording studio, which was about 7500 sq feet, cost us about 150K to build out, plus the building in the first place, which was approximate $13.50 a square foot for a total of $20 + 13.50 = $33.50 per square foot. Do know that this is "nearly free", and again did not include gear, snakes, cash registers, counters, etc, just the simple acoustically treated, splayed wall, structure with some glasswork.

The cost advantage of a home studio, is you're already paying rent or a mortgage, so the space itself doesn't cost you additional, only what you do to it.

The reason why our pro studio was "so cheap" is we did a lot of the acoustical treatments incorrectly, we had nearly-free labor, and acquired the building through a mortgage foreclosure auction.

This is why my home studio has so far been dirt cheap... *I* am doing all the labor (and occasionally my cousin helps). This is also why, five months into the project, my gear is still in the attic rather than in the studio.

:D
 
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