When it comes to best practices in shopping center development or mall construction, I have a long list of “dos” and “don’ts”. After all, that’s what happens when you work as a shopping center general contractor as well as a national retail contractor. You hear the good, bad and ugly from shopping center landlords, mall and retail developers, architects and subcontractors.

So since it feels like I’ve walked a mile in everyone’s shoes when it comes to shopping center construction I wanted to share some important tips. Keep these in mind when the retail market starts to rebound and you’ll be ahead of the game on your next shopping center development.

1. Establish relationships early in the design stage with your commercial construction general contractor. This lets your general contractor weigh in with estimated construction costs before plans are finalized and sent out for subcontractor bids. Miss this step and your architect could be sending out plans for bid that are out of whack with your construction budget.

2. Allow design and construction teams to interact early with jurisdictional authorities. One client of ours thought village officials should be thanking their lucky stars this retailer was building a store. By the time we were brought in for permitting services, nobody wanted to work with us because the client was so arrogant. When it comes to building inspectors, the health department, etc., you can’t forget you’re in their sandbox. The sooner they see you and your general contractor as a partner, the sooner your construction project will be approved.

3. Make sure you’re working with a general contractor experienced in shopping center construction so they can review your tenant design criteria to keep commercial construction costs down. GCs well-versed in mall construction know what is reasonable for landlords to provide to tenants and what the tenants are responsible for themselves in a retail build-out.

4. Have your shopping center general contractor create a sequence of events and logistics plan to keep track of each tenant’s construction and delivery deadlines. If a tenant is 20 weeks out from moving in merchandise, the mall general contractor needs to have the service court paved in time for that deadline. Seems obvious enough, yet you would be surprised how many shopping center contractors are only focused on their timeline and have very little consideration for your tenant’s needs. Your tenant’s needs are important to you, so they need to be important to your general contractor.

5. Keep calm and carry on. If I’ve heard clients say it once, I’ve heard them say it a thousand times that they don’t think we’ll make a grand opening date. In 30-plus years of business, I’ve never missed a grand opening deadline. If you’re a shopping center construction contractor, the key to remaining calm is keeping the channels of communication open. Weekly meetings with all retail contractors and shopping mall subcontractors throughout the mall’s construction cycle are a must so you can share construction schedules and delivery timelines.

I know, these five tips to successful shopping center development may seem like common sense, but it’s rare for all of these best practices to be implemented on a project during the construction process. However, follow the advice above and your next new-construction shopping center is sure to be the exception to the rule and not the norm.

When do you think shopping center construction will pick back up? I’d love to hear your comments at bill.disanto@englewoodconstruction.com.