Express Exterior Construction

There seem to be plenty of contractors who want to quote high prices on construction these days, but I'm a do-it-yourself guy. The quotes I have seen are around $400,000 for construction of the building and sitework. Tunnel equipment costs, install, and land are added on after that.

I have experience with warehouse construction and am considering building an express exterior 120' tunnel with a 30' x 125' building on a 1 acre lot.

I just can't see how it takes nearly $100/ft to build these things. I understand that construction costs can vary significantly depending of region (I'm in Arkansas) and specific site work, but how much does it really cost? My building would be similar to the "Boomerang/Rapido Rabbit" buildings.

Can anybody post how much they actually spent on construction of a similar site? Assuming you have a nice flat vacant lot, minimal utility improvements, and NOT counting the cost of land, or equipment and install.

Hey Matt have you had the guys who build the Boomerangs give you a quote?

Hopefully Ron P, Mr Jaffa and Panama Jim will comment. I have not built an express tunnel. Last building I was involved in was completed in 2004, a nice 4/2, and it cost over 300K for building and site improvements. Electrical and plumbing have really increased in the past couple of years and will account for a large part of this. I bet electrical and plumbing alone could account for 100K of bid price. On the surface 400K sounds pretty reasonable to me.

$400,000 is in the ballpark - alot depends on the details. Concrete, electrical and steel cost have increased greatly over the last few years.

There are so many variables, it is hard to say every exterior car wash is the same. What equipment, how sophistcated, where located, where is the sewer and water, adding reclaim, what are on the walls,?. One of the best ways is to weigh the plans, and the price is so much a ounce.

Also, because we do not build stand alone washes (we believe in multi profit centers sites), it would be hard for us to give a proper answer.

Jimmy

I'm about 60 days away from breaking ground on my new wash. It's an 80' exterior tunnel plus 4 SS bays. The bids I'm getting are around $600K for hard costs. The concrete bid and block bid are each about $150K. The total amount is about $135 per sq. foot. For some reason, everything is more expensive in CA.

I broke ground on a project about 6 week's ago. Allthough i'm building a multi profit center site, your number's to me seem very reasonable. I'm in the boston market and i'm around $150 per sq.foot. That number does not include site work, if you include site work the number is around 190 per sq.foot. Those number's are based on Royal Buildings Systems. We have a few site's that have been built like you are describing up here the last few year's and none came in as low as your quote.

Thanks guys, I guess the #'s aren't too far off, just a knee jerk reaction when seeing $100/sqft.

I haven't gotten a quote from ACS. Aren't they spending 2-3 million total on their boomerang projects?

hey matt...the way that i see it is that you have not invested one minute of your time investigating this industry. you are one of those guys that sees someone elses idea and thinks he should jump in blindly and reap all the rewards. instead of getting on here and trying to get all of this FREE information, why dont you do like the rest of us and actually spend some time and MONEY (your own money) learning how all of this works. if you are afraid of a $100/ft for construction your not ready to be in this industry, maybe you should go build some spec houses.

Well, that's a pretty hostile first post, or do we have a troll here now?

hmmmm, maybe tunnelguy is competition in Fayetteville?

Geez tunelguy, maybe I should be a complete idiot and not harness the power of the internet when doing my research.

I said that I had experience in warehouse construction, not spec houses. My investigation of the industry and multiple sites in multiple states has led me to believe that with the exception of the foundation (pit/tanks) and specific plumbing/electrical, a shell building for a tunnel isn't a whole hell of a lot different than that of a nice tilt-con flex warehouse structure. I have actually seen that Mercury car wash is building tilt wall tunnels in Colorado.

I also stated that I was a do-it-yourself guy. As a general rule, my type really isn't interested in paying a premium for somebody else to do something that I can do myself.

Sorry to be interested in your novel "idea" that people have been infringing on for the past 40 years.

tunnelguy is also a bit of a coward, no name - no location - Just anger -

Channel that energy into something useful.