Construction estimating services in Tucson, AZ

We price by project scope, not by a flat city rate, because a tenant improvement and a multifamily building take very different effort. Send the plan set and we will quote before starting. Most projects turn around in 24–48 hours, and rush delivery is available if your bid date is close. Deliverables come as Excel and PDF, organized by CSI MasterFormat division, with marked-up plan sets so you can trace every quantity back to the sheet it came from.

Yes. We separate common excavation from rock excavation because the two are bid at different unit rates. On Tucson-area projects, we look for the geotechnical report and the grading plan, then take off over-excavation, structural fill, moisture conditioning and haul-off as separate lines. If the geotech report identifies caliche at a specific depth, we note that depth on the takeoff so your excavator can price the ripping realistically rather than carrying a contingency.

Post-tension work is broken out from mild steel. We take off strand by linear foot, anchors and stressing tails by count, and mild steel reinforcement by bar size from the placing drawings. We also carry the special inspection line, because post-tension stressing typically requires it. If the structural drawings show a mix of post-tensioned slabs and conventional footings, we keep those quantities separate so each package can be bid by the right subcontractor.

Yes, and on repetitive projects it is the fastest way to bid. We take off one of each unit type, then multiply by the unit count and add the common areas — corridors, stairs, elevator lobbies, mechanical rooms and the roof — as separate scopes. That structure lets your framing, drywall and MEP subcontractors price per unit and see exactly what the common area adds. Our multi-family estimating service is built around that unit-type format.

The complete plan set, including architectural, structural, civil, mechanical, plumbing and electrical sheets, plus the specifications and any addenda. If you have a geotechnical report, send it, because it changes the foundation and earthwork quantities. A bid date and a scope note help us prioritize the divisions you care about most. If the drawings are still at 60 percent, we can still take off what is shown and flag the gaps for a later update.

We use ZIP-code-adjusted material and labor pricing, so a Tucson ZIP code does not get priced like Phoenix. That matters for concrete, masonry, framing labor and trucking. We work from RSMeans data as the base and adjust to the local market. We do not publish a single citywide wage rate, because labor rates move and vary by trade and by contract type. Your estimate shows the basis for each unit price so you can compare it to your own historical costs.

Drainage quantities come off the civil plans. We take off retention basin excavation by volume, riprap by square foot or ton, outlet protection by count, and storm drain pipe by size and material with structures counted separately. We also carry sediment and erosion control as a line item, because it appears on the SWPPP and is easy to leave out of a bid. If the plans show a desilting basin, we take off the cleanout volume as a separate allowance.

The permit figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey for 2025. The survey counts permits issued by the city itself, and the numbers shown are new privately-owned residential units only — they exclude commercial, industrial, additions and alterations. Tucson issued 1,505 residential units, split 805 single-family and 700 multifamily, with a permitted value of $309 million. That works out to an average of $205,500 per unit, and it puts Tucson at 8 of 24 among the covered Arizona cities.

Yes. We cover Pima County and the surrounding jurisdictions, and we regularly work on projects in the Phoenix metro as well. If your project is in Marana, Oro Valley, Sahuarita or unincorporated Pima County, the adopted code edition and the reviewing authority may differ from the City of Tucson. We note the jurisdiction on the takeoff and tell you to confirm the adopted code edition with the local building department, because that affects inspection requirements and some material specifications.

Yes. Tenant improvements are a large share of Tucson commercial work, and they have their own takeoff logic. We separate demolition from new work, take off partitions by type and height, and carry the MEP modifications as their own scope because they are often the largest cost in a TI. We also flag the items that depend on existing conditions — ceiling grid reuse, panel capacity, duct routing above the existing ceiling — so you can carry a realistic allowance instead of a guess.