Commercial construction in Batumi: buildings for business and letting

We build a commercial building on your plot for a specific business. The design starts with how the building will operate: how many people will come in a day, what deliveries will arrive, what equipment will run at the same time. These decide the spans, the floor loads, the storey height and the capacity of the services, and sometimes the class of the structure too.

The commercial buildings we build

For each type, the key decisions are made at the concept stage; the details are on the page for each type.

If a building combines different uses, for example shops on the ground floor and offices above, the floor slabs are designed for the heaviest load, and the services are laid out so that each unit can be let separately.

The plot and the zone: what you can build on it

A commercial building runs up against the limits of its plot more often than a house does. The zone under the development rules determines whether a commercial use is allowed, how much floor area can be built and how high. We read these parameters from the Public Registry extract and the zoning rules together with an architect, ideally before you pay a deposit on the land.

Then we look at access: a warehouse and a shop get lorries every day, a car service centre gets a recovery truck, and a cafe gets suppliers early in the morning. You need a wide enough entrance, room to turn on the plot and a place to unload where a vehicle won't block the street, and we check the number of parking spaces against the zoning rules. We request the conditions for the power connection from the network company in the first weeks of the project, because that procedure has its own timeline.

Class of structure and the permit

Under the rules in force in 2026, the class is determined by floor area, height, the depth of the underground part and the span of the beams or trusses, and the building takes the class of its highest parameter. This is set out in Government Resolution No. 255 of 31 May 2019. Guide figures for buildings from its annex:

• Class II: up to 500 m² of floor area, up to 12 m high, an underground part no deeper than 4 m, spans up to 7 m. A private house usually falls into this class;
• Class III: up to 6,000 m² and up to 22 m, an underground part deeper than 4 m, spans up to 12 m. An office building of three or four storeys, for example, falls into it;
• Class IV: over 6,000 m², over 22 m high, or spans of 12 m or more.

For a commercial building, the class is often set by the span rather than the floor area. A small shop with a column-free sales floor 9 m wide is already Class III, and a warehouse with 18 m trusses is Class IV. So we choose the width of the hall and the column spacing at the concept stage, together with the class: sometimes a column placed where it doesn't get in the way keeps the building one class lower.

The higher the class, the more work there is before construction. For Classes II–IV a topographic survey and a ground survey are mandatory, and for Classes III and IV in a built-up area a survey of the neighbouring buildings is required as well. We confirm the class and the set of documents with an architect and our partner lawyer, and the general permit procedure is described on the page about construction in Batumi.

Escape routes, stairs, fire doors and the alarm are specified in the design under the technical regulation “Safety Rules for Buildings and Structures” (Government Resolution No. 41 of 28 January 2016). We draw a step-free entrance and a toilet for visitors who use a wheelchair at the concept stage, while they are still easy to fit in.

A frame for the spans and loads

For a building of two to four storeys housing offices, shops or a clinic, we usually use a cast-in-place reinforced concrete frame with block infill walls: the columns and floor slabs take the seismic load. For a single-storey warehouse, workshop or car service centre, a steel frame makes more sense. It spans the hall without intermediate columns and goes up faster, but by the sea it needs protection from corrosion.

We calculate the floor loads for the building's future use: archives, racking full of stock and kitchen equipment weigh far more than the furniture in a home. If an office floor might be let as a warehouse or a clinic in a few years, the structural engineer builds in the extra capacity from the start, because strengthening a finished slab costs more. The storey height is set by the ducts and cable trays under the ceiling, so our slab-to-slab height is usually 3.6–4.5 m.

Services for a tenant who isn't there yet

If the building is being built to let and there are no tenants yet, we put in what is expensive to add later: separate service connections and meters for each unit, a distribution board with spare capacity, platforms for outdoor units on the roof, and a shaft through which a cafe can take its extract above the roof. Without such a shaft a unit with a kitchen is hard to let, because a flue up the facade doesn't always get approval.

We position the risers so that a toilet or a sink can go into any section of a floor. Low-voltage cables (data, CCTV, access control) run floor by floor in their own trays, separate from the power cables. Every run is photographed before it is closed up, and the diagram in the handover file will be useful to a tenant who moves in five years from now.

Investor, tenant and contractor

When a tenant has already been found, their technical brief goes into the design: loads, power, heights, a delivery entrance. We advise signing at least a preliminary agreement with them before the working drawings, otherwise the building may end up with services for a business that has changed its mind about moving in.

For an investor, the budget and schedule matter most: each stage has its price and timeline in the contract, payments follow acceptance of each stage against a signed certificate, and we don't take prepayment for the whole job. Stages can be accepted on site, by video call or through your own technical supervision engineer. We don't promise rental income. Once it is finished, the building can be handed over to us for commercial property management.

Timelines and acceptance into use

For a building of two or three storeys, the surveys, the design with its building services sections and the permit usually take 4–8 months, and less for a single-storey shop or warehouse. We build the shell of a 600–800 m² building of two or three storeys in 5–7 months, and a steel-frame warehouse of the same size faster.

At the end we put together the as-built documentation for official acceptance of the building into use, if its class requires it, and for registration in the Public Registry. You receive a handover file with routing diagrams, photos of concealed work and a materials list with product codes.

How much commercial construction costs in Batumi

The shell of a commercial building of 1–3 storeys costs from 990 to 1,260 ₾ per m². This price includes the foundations, the cast-in-place concrete or steel frame, floor slabs designed for commercial loads, the walls and the roof. The facade, windows, building services and finishes are priced separately, for the tenant or for your business, and the design is also a separate line.

For reference: a shell and core office building with the facade, a lift and service connections costs from 1,530 ₾ per m², the shell of a steel-frame warehouse or hangar with sandwich panels from 580 ₾, and a turnkey restaurant building without kitchen equipment from 2,580 ₾.

Long spans, heavy floor slabs and a basement make a building more expensive, while a simple steel-frame volume makes it cheaper. We send a preliminary estimate from photos of the plot and a concept sketch within 24 hours on business days. The final cost is set on the basis of the design, after a visit to the plot and once the estimate is agreed, and the price and timeline of each stage are fixed in the contract.