We signed the lease in March and were serving customers in June. LNB walked the space with our drawings before we committed and told us exactly what the landlord's work letter did not cover.
Marisol Vega
Owner · Independent Cafe
Services
Dental Office Build Out Contractor
A dental office build out contractor has to land water, drain, air, vacuum, power and data in exact positions before the chairs go in. Move an operatory after that and you are opening the slab.
- Licensed Texas General Contractor
- Bonded & Insured
- Workers’ Comp Carried
- BBB Accredited A+
- NARI Member
- On Site In All 50 States
- Escrow Services Available
A Plumbing And Equipment Project
A dental build-out is a plumbing and equipment project. Every operatory needs water, drain, air, vacuum, power and data delivered to a precise location under the slab or in the wall, and once the chairs are set, moving any of it means breaking concrete.
LNB Construction builds dental practices. Startups, relocations, expansions and DSO rollouts. We coordinate with your equipment vendor from day one, because on a dental job the equipment drawings are the construction drawings.
Reception, business office, consult room, patient restroom to ADA, waiting area and a private doctor’s office round the plan out. None of that is where the money goes, and none of it is what decides the schedule.
- 20+
- Years In Business
- 250,000+
- Square Feet Built
- 50
- States On Site
- 17+
- Locations Delivered
Dental Build Out Scope
Six areas. The first is repeated once per operatory, which is why operatory count moves a dental budget more than square footage does.
- Operatories
- Under-slab or wall-mounted utility rough-in per the equipment vendor’s template: water, waste, compressed air, vacuum, 110V and 220V power, data for the chair-side computer and sensor, and gas where used. Chair anchoring, cabinetry and delivery unit mounting.
- Central Mechanical Room
- Compressor and vacuum pump placement, dedicated circuits, ventilation and heat rejection, condensate drainage, and enough acoustic treatment that the pump is not audible in the operatory next door.
- Imaging
- Lead-lined walls, lead glass and shielding designed per a physicist’s report for pan, ceph and CBCT rooms. Dedicated circuits and data, plus structural support for ceiling-mounted units.
- Sterilization
- Sterilization centre casework, plumbing, dedicated power, ventilation, and the clean and dirty workflow separation the state board expects.
- Lab And Utility
- Model trimmer plumbing, dust collection, plaster traps, and nitrous manifold and alarm panel where used.
- Compliance
- ADA throughout, state dental board facility requirements, infection-control finishes, hand sink locations, and certified installation and testing where nitrous or medical gas is present.
The Vendor Coordination That Decides The Job
Dental construction has more parties than any other build-out of the same size, and the sequencing between them is the job.
Eight parties, one floor.
You, the architect, the equipment vendor, the IT vendor, the practice management software provider, the shielding physicist, the general contractor and the landlord. Every one of them has a drawing that affects somebody else’s.
The equipment drawings are the construction drawings.
The vendor’s rough-in drawings drive the plumbing and the electrical. Nothing under the slab can be located without them.
Late or changed drawings cost real money.
If those drawings arrive late, or if they change after the slab is cut, the correction is concrete work rather than a revision.
So the schedule hangs on one milestone.
Equipment rough-in drawings approved and frozen before we open the floor. Everything else is built around that date.
Funding A Dental Build Out
Almost every practice we build is financed, and the lender has opinions about paperwork long before it has opinions about construction.
Most startups and expansions are financed.
SBA 7(a) or 504, or a practice-lending specialist. Those lenders release construction money in draws against documentation rather than on a schedule you set, so the documentation is part of the job.
That is how we bill by default.
AIA G702 and G703 certified payment applications with lien waivers from every tier, which is the format the lender is going to ask for whether or not anybody warned you.
What A Dental Build Out Costs
Among the most expensive commercial categories per square foot, and the reason is not the finishes. It is that one room is repeated with full utilities each time.
Operatory count.
Each operatory carries its own water, waste, air, vacuum, power and data run. A six-op practice costs meaningfully more per foot than a professional office the same size.
Under-slab work.
Whether utilities can be run in the walls or have to go under the floor. Cutting, trenching and repouring a slab is the difference between two very different numbers.
Imaging shielding.
Lead-lined partitions and glazing designed to a physicist’s report, plus structural support for ceiling-mounted units and the inspection that follows.
Mechanical room and millwork.
Compressor and vacuum placement with real ventilation, heat rejection and acoustic treatment, and a casework package that is closer to cabinetry than to construction.
Most startups and expansions are financed by SBA 7(a), 504 or a practice lender. All of them release in draws against AIA billing, which is how we bill by default.
From Empty Shell To Open Doors
Drag any handle. On the left, a space in the condition a landlord hands it over in. On the right, a finished interior a business can trade out of.
ShellFinished
ShellFinished
ShellFinishedHow A Dental Build Out Runs
One milestone governs everything: equipment rough-in drawings approved and frozen before we open the floor.
Walkthrough And Scope
We walk it with your equipment vendor’s template rather than without it. Whether the utilities can reach your operatory layout is the entire question.
Budget And Bid
A line-item number built per operatory, so adding or removing an op moves a visible line rather than an opaque lump sum.
Permits And Drawings
Drawings and permit, plus the shielding physicist’s report for imaging rooms and the state dental board facility requirements where they apply.
Construction
Nothing opens the floor until the equipment drawings are frozen. Then under-slab utilities, mechanical room, shielding, sterilization casework and finishes.
Punch List And Handover
Punch, shielding inspection, and medical gas verification where nitrous is present, timed so the space is ready on your equipment install date rather than after it.
What Owners Say Afterwards
The part that matters is not the bid. It is whether the space opened when they said it would.
Our lender wanted G702s and a schedule of values, not a lump sum. LNB billed the way the bank expected from the first draw, so nothing stalled in underwriting.
Dev Ramaswamy
Franchisee · Fitness Franchise
Four units in three states and every one of them looks like the prototype. That is the part I could never get from hiring a different contractor in each market.
Alicia Brenner
Director of Development · Multi-Site Retail Brand
One superintendent, one number to call, weekly progress against the schedule. We were paying rent on a dark store and they knew it.
Tomasz Kowal
Managing Partner · Retail Group
The permit run in our jurisdiction is where these projects usually die. They tracked it and told us where it sat every week instead of going quiet.
Renée Okafor
Practice Manager · Dental Practice
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Dental Build Out FAQ
How much does a dental office build out cost?
Driven mostly by operatory count and whether under-slab work is required. It is one of the higher-cost categories per square foot.
How long does a dental office build out take?
Typically longer than a comparable office, because of the plumbing rough-in, the shielding inspections and the equipment install sequence. Getting equipment drawings early is the biggest schedule lever you control.
Do you work with dental equipment vendors?
Yes. Patterson, Henry Schein, Benco, or whoever you are buying from. We coordinate directly with their installation team on rough-in locations and install sequencing.
Do you handle lead lining for X-ray rooms?
Yes, installed per the shielding design in your physicist’s report and coordinated with state inspection where required.
Can you convert an existing dental office?
Yes. Second-generation dental space can be a real saving if the operatory layout suits your plan, and a real cost if it does not, because the utilities are in the wrong place and in the slab. We assess it at the walkthrough before you sign.
Do you build med spas and medical offices too?
Yes, as a related specialty with a different regulated scope.
Next step
You Signed The Lease. Let's Get It Open.
Send us the space and the brand standards. You'll get a walkthrough scheduled inside 48 hours and a real number. Not a range, not a “starting at.”
No obligation. No pressure. If we're not the right builder for your project, we'll tell you on the call.
info@lnbconstruction.net
