The question usually arrives with a lease date. The team has outgrown the floor, the boardroom seats eight when meetings need twelve, and the landlord wants to know your intentions. Refurbish what you have, or move? Each path has costs the other doesn’t, and the wrong call is expensive.
At Office Fitout Professionals (OFP), a Balcatta-based registered builder (BP12706), we work on both sides of this decision: refreshing a law firm’s offices while it kept trading, with the noisier work done before the staff arrived; moving a mining company from one level of its building to another over a single weekend, new reception counter included; and making good the tenancies businesses leave behind, whether that is an office tower floor or a warehouse.
Here’s what each option involves, the questions that decide it, and how to get a straight answer.
Key Takeaways
- A refurbishment reworks the tenancy you already hold: layout, partitions, finishes, services and furniture, often while the business keeps operating.
- A relocation is three projects, not one: the fitout of the new space, the make good of the old one, and the move itself.
- Five questions decide it: space, lease, building services, disruption and the full cost of each path.
- OFP is registered with the Builders Registration Board of WA (BP12706) and CM3 pre-qualified, with design, partitioning, joinery and trades in-house.
- Pre-lease advice is part of our process, so the scope of works is clear before you commit to a new lease.
What Each Option Involves
An office refurbishment keeps the address and changes the space. Light means new finishes and furniture; deep means demolition, sub-division and rezoning of the floor, with partitions, ceilings and services reworked around a new plan. Either way the business is still in the building, so the work is staged. On one recent job the whole team kept working in the adjoining tenancy while we demolished an 88 sqm office and rebuilt it with glazed partitions to bring the light through, timing the noisy work and the shared services around them and bringing one oversized glass panel up in two sections because it would not fit the access.
A relocation starts with a lease, then a fitout of the new tenancy from shell to working office, and ends with the old space handed back as the lease requires. One of our clients, Plancare, went from a cramped office to a 500 sqm floor, with a defined zone for each team, open collaboration areas between them, and site access and parking bays worked out with building management so trades were never queuing. Outgoing tenants often underestimate that last part.
Five Questions That Decide It
The first two are about your business and your lease, and the last three test whether the building, your team and your budget can carry each path:
- Does the space fit the business you’ll be in three years from now? Count the people, meeting rooms and quiet space you need. Journey One’s answer was two phone booths lined with acoustic plasterboard inside the open plan, instead of more offices.
- What does the lease say? How long is left, what the landlord will contribute to a refurbishment, and what the make good clause requires if you leave. Landlords often fund a warm shell or spec fit for the next tenant; ask whether that budget could refresh your floor instead.
- Can the building’s services carry the plan? Electrical capacity, data, air conditioning and plumbing decide whether a new layout is a partition job or a services job. When Mineral Resources turned 700 sqm on Hasler Road into a training facility, the existing air conditioning was reused, with extra units only where the new rooms needed them.
- How much disruption can the business absorb? A staged refurbishment keeps you trading in the same building; at Green Wings, demolition and the key stages ran on weekends and after hours.
- What does each path cost in full? A refurbishment quote should show the building works and every trade as its own line. A relocation budget needs the new fitout, the make good, removals and two rents overlapping. We cost both from one site visit.
Once the answers are written down, the decision becomes a comparison of two costed options rather than a gut feeling.
How OFP Helps You Decide
You don’t have to commit to either path until the scope and the costs are on paper. We run both options through the same documented process:
- Meeting and getting started: we identify your requirements, discuss the scope of works and agree a budget, with pre-lease advice so the scope is clear before you sign
- Design and space planning: accurate computerised drawings of the refurbished floor or the new tenancy, which also go to council and the trades
- Council submission: we prepare and submit the documentation for a building licence in the shortest time frame possible
- Execution of project: the job is entered into our project management software, where you track progress and completion dates
- Completion of project: a walkthrough with your project manager before the completion date, with any problem areas resolved before handover
Throughout the build, a dedicated project manager runs the job on site and keeps in touch with you through to completion.
When Refurbishing Wins, and When Moving Does
Neither option is right for every business, but a few patterns hold across the projects we work on.
- Refurbish when the location works and the layout doesn’t. Murfett Legal’s reception was re-faced rather than rebuilt, the kitchen extended and acoustic panels fitted in the boardroom.
- Refurbish when the floor is too big. Sub-dividing the tenancy and refreshing the part you keep fits the business to the space; we have split one tenancy into separately leasable offices with acoustic plasterboard and laminated glass.
- Move when the building can’t carry the plan. If the switchboard, the lifts or the floor plate stop the layout you need, a refurbishment only polishes the problem.
- Move when the lease is ending anyway. With a make good due regardless, the cost of leaving is already on the table, and a new fitout can be designed around the business rather than the old walls. Line the handback date up with the new floor’s completion and the business moves once, over a weekend if the fitout is finished first.
OFP handles both paths, from renovating, sub-dividing and rezoning the space you have to making good your old office when you are ready to relocate, so we have no reason to prefer one over the other. Sometimes the answer is to move, and we’ll say so. One client whose build ran on a very tight timeline wrote that they were “impressed with the speed and flexibility of Office Fitout Professionals” and that their staff love the fitout.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who does office refurbishments in Perth?
Office Fitout Professionals (OFP) in Balcatta renovates, refurbishes and rezones offices across Perth as a CM3 pre-qualified registered builder (BP12706), with design, partitioning and trades in-house.
Can we keep working during a refurbishment?
Yes, where the site allows, as Murfett Legal and Green Wings did while their offices were rebuilt around them.
If we move, who handles the old office?
We do. Removing partitions you installed, repainting, and repairing or replacing floor coverings, warehouse bolts and epoxy repair included.
How long does an office refurbishment take?
Our FAQ page gives a general guide by office size, and we give you a programme after the site visit. For further information, contact our team or book a free consultation.
How much does it cost to refurbish compared with moving?
It depends on the floor, services and finishes. See our office fitout cost guide for typical figures, or book a free consultation and we’ll cost both paths.
Book a Free Consultation
OFP renovates, fits out and makes good offices across Perth and Western Australia, from concept to handover. Whichever way you decide, the same in-house team designs the space, prepares the council submission and builds it, with your project manager as the common link from the first meeting to the final walkthrough. We can advise on a prospective tenancy before you sign, so the scope of works is clear before you commit, and our quotes break out the building works and every trade. Book a consultation or call (08) 6465 4900.