Working with a landlord's delivery process

Two gatekeepers, two sets of criteria

The design approval and the delivery approval are separate processes inside a centre, and an operator who treats them as one correspondence will satisfy neither on time.

The Retail Design Manager assesses the design: whether the proposed tenancy meets the centre's design requirements. The Tenancy Delivery Manager governs the build itself: access, programme, compliance on site, and the conditions under which work happens in a trading centre.

They are not the same person and their criteria do not overlap. A design that is approved can still be undeliverable under the centre's site conditions, and a delivery plan that satisfies the site can still be rejected on design. Both approvals are prerequisites to starting work, which makes them parallel tracks to be run deliberately rather than a single queue to be joined.

The fitout period is granted, not agreed

It is the landlord's number. On one tenancy it was corrected mid-correspondence from an earlier figure to ten weeks.

The revision matters more than the duration. A tenant planning against a fitout period is planning against something the counterparty can restate, and every commitment already made against the earlier figure, contractor mobilisation, equipment delivery, a campaign start, a first shift roster, has to absorb the change.

So the question to ask before signing is not only how long the fitout period is. It is what can change it, when it becomes fixed, and what is confirmed in writing. Until that answer exists, the launch date should be derived from the fitout period rather than committed alongside it.

Handover is a milestone, not an opening

Two dates come out of a centre's delivery process and operators routinely hear only the first. On one project the centre issued an estimated handover at the start of August and an estimated commencement of trade at the start of October.

Nine weeks separate the keys from the doors. Rent, hiring, training, stock and the launch campaign all attach to the second date, while access, insurance and contractor mobilisation attach to the first. Reading them as one date is what produces a venue that is finished and not permitted to open.

Settle the certificates before signing, not during delivery

Development consent, construction certificate and occupation certificate are three instruments and they do not have to sit with the same party. On one project the landlord resolved the development application while the tenant carried the construction and occupation certificates.

That split is workable and it is not the default. It is a commercial term, and its value is highest before signature, when it can still be traded. During delivery it stops being a negotiation and becomes an obligation someone has already accepted, usually the party who did not read the clause as an allocation of work.

The development application in particular determines whether the tenant needs a town planner for change of use and approved seat count, which is a consultant appointment with a lead time attached to it.

The five things to settle before the lease is signed

Each of these is cheap to resolve as a question and expensive to resolve as a discovery.

1. How long is the fitout period, and what can restate it. Including when it becomes fixed and in what document.

2. Who owns the development application. This decides whether the tenant appoints a town planner.

3. Who carries the construction certificate and the occupation certificate. They can be split from the development application and from each other.

4. What is the gap between handover and the date trade is required to start. The second date is the one the business plan runs on.

5. Which consultants the process obliges the tenant to appoint. BCA, hydraulic and mechanical consultants sit outside a builder's scope and have their own lead times.

Submissions that anticipate both gates

The most common cause of a rejected submission is not a poor design. It is a submission written for one manager and read by two.

A design package that meets the centre's design requirements but says nothing about how the work will be carried out inside a trading building will clear one gate and stall at the other. A delivery programme that addresses access, hours and protection while leaving a design question open does the reverse.

Preparing for both at once costs one drafting cycle. Discovering the second gate after the first has been cleared costs a resubmission, and a resubmission is paid for out of the fitout period, which is the one resource on the project the tenant cannot extend.

How to work the process rather than fight it

A centre's delivery process is built to protect a trading asset from the disruption of its own tenants, and it will not be reshaped for one venue. The leverage is in how it is entered, not whether it applies.

That means one nominated point of contact on the tenant side rather than a builder and an operator emailing separately, submissions that anticipate both managers rather than one, and every consultant appointed while the design is still being drawn rather than when an approval stalls waiting on their document.

An operator who treats the centre's process as an obstacle spends the fitout period arguing. An operator who treats it as a published specification spends the fitout period building.