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
Franchise Build Out Contractor
A franchise build out contractor answers to your brand standards manual, your approved vendor list and a franchisor holding you to an opening date already in writing. The build is where that promise gets tested.
- Licensed Texas General Contractor
- Bonded & Insured
- Workers’ Comp Carried
- BBB Accredited A+
- NARI Member
- On Site In All 50 States
- Escrow Services Available
Same Drawings, Different Jurisdictions
You bought a franchise. Now you have a brand standards manual, an approved vendor list, a franchisor with an opening date, and an empty suite in a strip centre.
LNB Construction builds franchise locations to spec. Twelve Tint World locations. Happy Cat Hotel. Same drawings, different jurisdictions, and a store that looks like the brand book every time.
If you are opening your first location, the whole job is getting one store right. If you are past that, the job changes shape entirely, and so does the way we run it.
- 20+
- Years In Business
- 250,000+
- Square Feet Built
- 50
- States On Site
- 17+
- Locations Delivered
Franchise Brands We Have Built
Repeat programs rather than one-off stores. The counts below are locations delivered, not locations bid.
- Tint World
- Twelve locations, 6,500 sq ft average. Automotive styling centres: bay build-outs, lift and compressed air infrastructure, and a retail front.
- Happy Cat Hotel
- Two locations, 4,800 sq ft average. Specialty ventilation, kennel systems and a retail front, on a prototype that assumes none of it.
What Franchisees Actually Need From A Contractor
Not general competence. Four specific things, and a contractor who has only ever built independents will be short on at least two of them.
Somebody who reads the brand manual as a specification.
Fixture models, finish schedules, signage placement, colour codes, equipment vendors. If the manual says a specific laminate, that is the laminate, not an equivalent the contractor happened to have on the shelf.
Somebody who knows where the manual and the code will collide.
Franchisors write standards nationally. Codes are local. Your brand’s standard counter height, restroom layout or exit door swing may not comply in your jurisdiction. Somebody has to spot that during plan review and negotiate the variance with the franchisor. That is a specific skill and it is the one that saves openings.
Somebody who can build to a fixture delivery date.
Franchisor fixture packages ship on fixed dates from a single vendor. If the slab is not ready, the truck does not wait. We schedule backwards from the fixture ship date rather than forwards from the permit.
Somebody your lender will accept.
Most first-location franchisees are funded by an SBA 7(a) loan. The lender releases in draws against documentation. We bill in the format they expect, which is not a thing you want to discover mid-project.
Multi-Location Programs
Once you are past location one the problem changes. It stops being build this store and becomes build this store the same way, eleven more times, in eleven different markets.
One standard, enforced.
We build a project standard from the brand manual and hold every market to it. Location nine gets the same fixture install detail as location one.
A vetted trade base per market.
We build and qualify local trades in each market rather than dragging one crew across the country. It is faster and cheaper, and the quality holds because the standard and the superintendent do not change.
One reporting format.
A weekly written report per location on the same template, so you can read twelve projects in ten minutes instead of taking twelve phone calls.
Lessons carry forward.
The permit comment that cost us two weeks in Phoenix gets designed out before we submit in Denver. That is the entire advantage of running a program rather than a series of jobs.
What Moves A Franchise Build Out
The prototype gives you a number. What it costs to build in the suite you actually leased is a different number, and the gap between them is this list.
The prototype versus your suite.
Franchisor prototypes assume a building. Yours has a different shell depth, a different utility service and a different code. Reconciling the two is where franchise budgets move.
The mandated package.
Fixtures, equipment and finishes bought from named vendors at named specifications. Little of it is negotiable and all of it has a lead time you do not control.
Your jurisdiction.
The same brand standard costs different money in different markets, and occasionally cannot be built as drawn at all until somebody negotiates a variance.
Location count.
Location one carries the learning. Locations two through twelve get the benefit of it, which is why a program prices differently from a series of separate jobs.
Bring us in before you sign the lease. A walkthrough tells you what a site costs to build out, and that is leverage on both the TI allowance and the free-rent period.
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 Franchise Build Out Runs
The order is the same as any build-out. What changes is that a fixed ship date sits at the end of it and everything is scheduled backwards from there.
Walkthrough And Scope
We walk the site against the prototype, not against a generic checklist. The gap between the two is where a franchise build-out overruns.
Budget And Bid
Priced against the brand manual and the approved vendor list. Mandated items bought where they are mandated, equivalents priced both ways where the manual allows them.
Permits And Drawings
Submittal and plan review, plus the variance conversation when the brand standard and the local code disagree. Somebody has to own that with the franchisor, and it is us.
Construction
Scheduled backwards from the fixture ship date. Slab, floor and power ready before the truck arrives, because the truck does not wait and it does not come back.
Punch List And Handover
Punch closed for the franchisor’s opening inspection as well as the jurisdiction’s, then the draw documentation your lender releases against.
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
1 of 5
Related Work
Real square footage, real timelines, real brands.
Automotive
Franchise rolled out. National.
Tint World · National
Service bays + customer lounge + retail
Pet Services
Specialty pet hospitality. Built to scale.
Happy Cat Hotel · National
Boarding + grooming + retail
1 of 3
Related Services
The same crews and the same schedule, on a different kind of space.
Franchise Build Out FAQ
Do you work from franchisor brand standards packages?
Yes. Send the standards manual, the prototype drawings and the approved vendor list with the bid request and we will price against them directly.
Can you handle multiple locations opening at the same time?
Yes. Concurrent multi-market programs are a core part of the business rather than an exception we accommodate.
Will you work with the franchisor’s approved vendors?
Yes. Where a vendor is mandated, we buy from them. Where the manual allows equivalents, we will price both and show you the difference.
Do you handle SBA-funded franchise projects?
Regularly. Draw schedules, AIA billing and the documentation the lender releases against are all standard for us.
How early should I bring you in?
Before you sign the lease if possible. A walkthrough before signing tells you what a site will actually cost to build out, which is negotiating leverage on both the TI allowance and the free-rent period.
Do you work with franchisors as well as franchisees?
Yes. If you run a system and you are tired of every franchisee finding their own contractor and getting a different result, that is a conversation worth having: a standard prototype cost model, one schedule, one reporting format across all your openings, and a single point of contact for your construction and real estate team.
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
