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Starbucks Vanilla Box Method of Construction

jar546

jar546

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So this method of construction confused me a little bit. I had to do a rough electric on a new Starbucks building, not a fit-out of existing. The interior slab was not poured yet yet the walls were framed inside the CMU. Since this is Florida and CMU exterior with tie-beams is standard, we normally only see the interior framed out after the slab is poured. In this case, the interior framed walls were essentially suspended over the dirt. There was very little electric, just a few boxes with conduit and no wire and nothing underground to look at. It gets better.

I'm told they needed the electric and framing inspection so they could install drywall and then they were done. Then a separate fit-out crew(contractors) comes in, rips the drywall off and does the fit out. This is one Starbucks, not to be separated into different tenant spaces. I never saw or heard of a process like this before.

Why not just do the underground, pour the slab and then frame? Weird.

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Missing nail plates, support probably >4' on plastic pipe (bar joist spacing?)......We see that a lot here, doing a new Panera that way here....Pour floor for shell and then cut floor for fitout...Dumb...
 
Yep Starbucks has their own process of building

I hate the two crew method for a simple building

I think lowes does it and a few others
 
Don't like that at all, getting concrete under those bottom sills will have to have a soupy mix. There are a few new strip centers done similar to this around here. You peek in the windows, and some times see wall insulation on the party walls and a gravel base with no plumbing or conduit in place.

Also not commercial but a residential builder I once knew would frame and roof the house and then pour the basement floor. He would leave a couple sheets of floor sheeting loose and pour through the floor and stairway opening. When I would go to do the rough-in later, the floor was almost black-green in color with no visible floor cracks, beautiful job, but kinda goofy way of doing it?

Wonder if conarb has seen that done before?
 
This is what happens when the real estate people control the process. The bean counters in these companies see construction project management as an expense, they are money spenders, not money makers so rarely do they hire enough qualified personnel to oversee this type of work. There's probably one person in the corporate office that handles these duties and it's usually somebodies brother-in-law.
Good company CPM would take the credit on the concrete floor and framing and have there own GC provide that work.
 
Pcinspector1 said:
Also not commercial but a residential builder I once knew would frame and roof the house and then pour the basement floor. He would leave a couple sheets of floor sheeting loose and pour through the floor and stairway opening. When I would go to do the rough-in later, the floor was almost black-green in color with no visible floor cracks, beautiful job, but kinda goofy way of doing it?
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We see that done a lot, especially for winter builds.
 
Are they going to run some MC down through the walls without fastening it later?

NEC 330.30 (D) Unsupported cables?
 
Yikes said:
Another reason a Starbucks-type enterprise will do this is if the concrete floor slab is the final finished floor, then they can avoid construction damage.
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Excellent point. I know that Walgreens is super critical of the floor level and finish and usually provide their own team to come out and check it. I've seen them require a floor to be demo'd out and redone since it was outside of their specs which are heavily enforced in their contract.
 
jar546 said:
Excellent point. I know that Walgreens is super critical of the floor level and finish and usually provide their own team to come out and check it. I've seen them require a floor to be demo'd out and redone since it was outside of their specs which are heavily enforced in their contract.
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The floor mostly disappears under gondolas and display cases.
 
We have recently had two new Starbucks in our little town. In both cases, the vanilla box was permitted and constructed by the owner/landlord (and included the concrete slab). Once the shell was complete, Starbucks contractor took out the permit for the tenant fitout. Under-slab rough plumbing and electrical conduit were installed as part of the shell package, and the 4" slab was poured as part of the shell construction.
 
I've never seen this for a standalone building - however there's likely a reason. If you are in a place where it takes more than a couple of months to get a permit or there's a backlog at the city - that's an 8 week delay to the building start. In that time, they can design the interiors, ideally collapsing the schedule by 8 weeks or more.
 
In both of the Starbucks projects we had in 2022, the fit-out plans and permit application were submitted pretty much at the same time as the shell plans and permit application. The design was fully complete before we knew anything about it. The projects were split into two permits because Starbucks rents the buildings. They didn't want to pay for or be responsible for construction of the shell, but they wanted to have complete control over the fit-out so they didn't have the building owner perform the fit-out portion of the work.
 
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