A quick recap for those entering in the middle of our space-building drama, an epic tale of bureaucracy, tax code law and financing agreements that’s, no doubt, keeping everyone on the edge of their seats.

When last we spoke, our intrepid little theatre had drafted a ground plan with an architect and signed a lease for our new space. Break out the sledgehammers, start mixing the dry wall, off we go, up up and away, no need to even wait for the PAV, we’ll open in April. Heck, we’ll remount House and Garden! Or if we aren’t finished dry-walling, we’ll mount Pericles in a post-apocalyptic setting! Environmental Theater! Mixed media art installations on top of the fork lifts!

Woah! Hang on, little camper. First off, you aren’t building anything. Not a thing. You’re hiring someone to do that for you. Someone licensed. Someone like a general contractor. And the city wants information about what you plan to do. Lots and lots of information. All of it collated in a frenzy of paperwork that lasts over a month. Drafted, reviewed, consulted and re-reviewed, this roll of papers will be able to stun a small child, will cost thirty five thousand dollars and will then sit on a civil servant’s desk for months as your precious free rent burns away like Frosty the Snowman on Key Largo.

“What? My beautiful little space! I have painters, I have a cousin who can do the carpentry and dry-wall. I bought an HVAC unit on auction. Why do I have to spend all this money and time?” you might well cry.

“Permits, my lad,” I retort. “Permits.”

To build anything in the City of Chicago, you must file for permit. From a strictly legal perspective, this is true even if you are modifying your house. Removing that dividing wall between your bedroom and your study requires city permission. Obviously, household repairs on private property can’t and won’t be policed anytime soon. But any construction on public property, or in a shared space, or for commercial use requires building permits from the city. Without them, you can be shut down for illegal construction, fined and even brought to court. Now, a number of developers have systems they use to start (or even complete) construction before permits are complete, but this is financially and legally risky, and you’d better know exactly what you’re doing.

We here at Theater Wit demonstrably have no idea what we’re doing, so a-permitting we go. You’re going to need a few things to apply for permit: a general contractor, complete and final plans drafted to the city’s specifications, and a fair amount of time.

The general contractor is the technical director for your building. It is his job to hire the crews, manage the inventory, purchase the building materials, manage change requests, warn you about cost overruns and maintain the permits. They are licensed and bonded to prevent fraud (or should be) and, as you move into construction, they are the party who will determine the ultimate success of your project. Your architect can find references, as can other building owners, other theatres, etc. Get references. Get hard data about cost overruns from previous clients. The general contractor is in charge of hiring all the subcontractors you’ll be using. Make sure he has enough experience and integrity so that dozens of his cousins aren’t frolicking around the job site for months.

The general contractor makes money like this: he takes out a partial loan from a bank to fund the first phase of construction, which includes the bonds he may have to float with his subcontractors, material costs, etc. He then manages the work crews and oversees and coordinates the construction. You maintain a bond with a third party in escrow that makes payments to the contractor at predetermined intervals. The contractor pays the bank back and passes all the material and personnel costs on to you, marked up 25 percent. Obviously, an unethical contractor can make a great deal of money through cost overruns and poor management, so a high level of integrity is essential.

You might also be working with a design/build firm, which is an architecture firm that also assumes the role of general contractor. The principle of these firms is that by maintaining a tight relationship between the design side and the construction side, unexpected costs are kept to a minimum and the project can also be paralleled internally so there are theoretical time savings that help offset the higher fee these firms charge.

Besides the contractor, you will need a few other drawings once you and your architect have finalized your plan. First, the plan must be transformed into a set of specific drawings the city requires for permit review, which include mechanical and structural engineering drawings. These drawings answer questions like, “Where is the electricity?” and “Will this floor collapse under the audience’s weight” and “How long will this take to burn down?” and “Will the audience asphyxiate themselves with an air conditioning system this small?” All of these questions are very important, for obvious reasons. To say nothing of “How much will this cost, really?”

If you are using a design/build firm or a larger architecture firm, these costs may be included in your architectural contract. A large firm might charge 20 percent of construction costs, but will provide all the drawings. A smaller architect might only charge 5-7 percent, but will pass on outside consultant costs for drawings to the owner. What sort of charges?

1) Mechanical Drawings. These will size the HVAC requirements, plot the electrical, plumbing and ventilation requirements. They will cost between $5,000 and $10,000 to draft.

2) Structural Drawings. These reflect the building supports, the fire safety rating of the various walls and stairwells, any load-bearing sections of the structure and required modifications to same. You may recall we had structural engineers look at the property before we signed a lease; their recommendations for joist and roof repair will be included in the structural drawings. These cost $8,000 to $10,000 to draft.

You might also want to consider some additional consultants as we did:

3) Acoustical Engineering. How loud is that “L” train? How can you prevent sound from bleeding into your studio from the mainstage? These drawings can be done in parallel with the mechanical and structural plans, above. They will include details on wall construction, gaskets for doors, analysis of electrical socket placements, etc. This information can be merged into your construction documents, but the city does not require them to be on the structural or mechanical drawings unless they change the layout of the building.

4) Landscaping. This is more common than you might think. Any work that happens in the outdoors besides signage must be prepared by a landscaping engineer: parking lots, flower beds. Even those little trees in the concrete tubs need to be considered, and there are a surprising number of city requirements in this area. For example, if you own the building, you will be required to plant greenery and trees in front of it in many neighborhoods. The official green thumb of draft-like approval runs between $2,500 and $10,000.

5) Theatrical/mechanical consultant. Make sure you have specced out the electricity requirements of your grid. Make sure you have plans for a grid that can safely follow code. There are many independent contractors and theatrical supply companies that can provide this service for a few thousand dollars.

6) Expediter. An expediter is a person who specializes in moving these plans through the city approval process (more on that in a bit). There is considerable debate as to how much time they can save a construction project and can run from $1,000 to $10,000. We chose to hire one since we were sufficiently unfamiliar with the process and had no personal contacts in city government who could keep an eye on our project. We didn’t want procedural ignorance to hold up our approval, and we wanted someone who had friends in the Department of Buildings who could make sure our plans hadn’t fallen behind a filing cabinet. (It happens).

So let’s tally up the (potential) costs: Mechanical, $10,000; Structural, $10,000; Acoustical, $4,000; Landscaping, $5,000; Expediter, $2,500. And don’t forget the permit review fees the city charges, about $3,000.

Total cost of permitting drawings and submission for us? Possibly as much as $34,500. We won’t know until the process is near done, as many of the consultants work at an hourly rate (which means it is essential for you and the architect to be done with your work before you start this process). And it can take four to six weeks to complete all the drawings.

Once your architect or your contractor or your expediter or you have submitted your plans to the city, they get reviewed by each individual department (Fire, Buildings, etc). If the plans are deemed inadequate at any point in this review process, they are rejected and you have to make corrections and resubmit them to be reevaluated completely. Under good conditions, with no rejections, this process can take several months. And rejections are likely, particularly with a public gathering space in a city with a recent history of collapsing porches and incendiary nightclubs.

Next month, we’ll get a better idea of the cost. But so far our tab is as follows:

Architectural fees, including structural vetting before lease signing: $23,500

Security deposit: $20,000

Permit process: $34,500

Total expenditures: $78,000

Percent Construction completed: 0 percent

Getting more exciting, no? 

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