Our business philosophy is formulated to match yours.
It’s all about giving your clients and their pets the best possible service and products at a reasonable price without compromising quality or standards. And making a reasonable profit. We mirror that philosophy. It’s extremely important that our clients receive maximum benefits without excessive fees and costs.
Our pricing is based on a flat fee for the entire job. Everything is included. We discourage you to consider any payment arrangement which is based on a percentage basis of the entire cost of the project. The percentage based payment scheme offers zero incentive to keep project costs down, since uncontrolled spiraling costs automatically increase the fee obligation.
We absolutely reject the notion that you must pay a premium for specialist design or information.
One-off consultation/review of an on-going or proposed project. A useful service recommended for establishing and confirming viability, value and performance of a project currently undergoing planning and/or construction. If you have lost confidence in or have doubts about your current project professionals, we will comprehensively review the design, contracts and other related information and quickly formulate an expert unbiased analysis. Many veterinarians lack specific expertise in design and construction methodology and rely upon proper advice which may or may not be dispensed with integrity.
We offer a wide range of services all of which can be tailored to your specific requirements.
Project Review
Complete Turnkey Design & Construction
We design and build your entire project utilizing in-house resources. This path eliminates expensive architect and engineering fees. Design and plan delivery is faster. You’ll have PDF format preliminary plans within a week. The overall design will incorporate your exact requirements coupled with our recommendations. We’ll bid out all third party vendors on a side-by-side basis and obtain detailed quotes broken down by category. You approve all aspects of the bids and contract before work begins. You pay all sub-contractors directly. There are no mark-ups, price add-ons or “commissions.” You pay the bid price only, which will be the least expensive of the three original bids obtained.
Owner’s Representative
We’ll oversee and monitor all aspects of the project from design to completion. An inexpensive option which provides full project oversight whereby your interests are fully protected. Idiotic design blunders are identified and revised. We renegotiate any unreasonably priced bid or estimate and replace the vendor outright if price modification is untenable. Unforeseen costs and “upcharges” are managed efficiently or in many cases eliminated outright. We’ll provide definitive, cost effective solutions as on-going problems arise and prevent unnecessary expense where it is not warranted. We’ll provide a comprehensive summary in writing, detailing the services to be provided.
Happily, there’s a third option in hiring Acorn, whereby you avail yourself of these benefits:
• Plan conceptualization encompassing strict client design criteria and mandates coupled with rigorous and meaningful budget parameters. In most cases, our clients receive their first working drawing within a week.
• Producing in-house scale drawings with all necessary revisions and alterations for drafting, code checking and permit acquisition.
• Prepare and execute comparative contractor and sub-contractor bidding to obtain the lowest possible construction and fit-out pricing. This is the most critical phase of the project because the bulk of the overall project pricing is determined, either to your detriment, or to your great advantage. Making an error in judgement at this stage could result in excessive costing.
The firms which do offer industry related expertise demand high fees for their services. This situation leads to an unpleasant dilemma: do you hire people that don’t know what they’re doing and hope for the best, or do you contract with a specialist high-end firm with costs and fees to match.
