Commercial renovation in Batumi: offices, cafes, hotels

How commercial renovation differs from renovating an apartment

People live above the cafe, neighbours work on the other side of the office wall, and the other shops in a shopping centre stay open. Commercial renovation in Batumi takes place in a working building, so even before the site measurement we find out its rules: when noise is allowed, where materials can be unloaded, where waste goes and who issues passes for the crew.

By law, daytime runs from 08:00 to 23:00. The rules of a residential building or a shopping centre can be stricter. It can also work the other way round: the management only lets the crew in after the shops close. We put conditions like these into the schedule from the start, otherwise the opening date will slip.

The contract, payment by stage and the weekly photo and video report are the same as for an apartment. What changes is the cost of a mistake. If the extraction bothers the neighbours or the equipment doesn't have enough power, the opening has to be postponed.

What matters in different types of premises

If your business needs a licence or a permit, find out the requirements for the premises from your consultant or equipment supplier before the design stage. We work to that brief and lay in the connections for equipment at the rough stage, so that finished walls don't have to be cut open later.

Ventilation and kitchen extraction

In a cafe or restaurant, the extraction decides whether the neighbours upstairs will complain about the smell. We plan the duct route from the canopy hood to the outlet before the finishing: whether it runs up a shaft or along the facade, which of the owners has to approve it, and whether the outlet would end up under the windows of apartments.

Along with the extraction we calculate the air supply. If air is only taken out, doors start to slam and the kitchen gets stuffy. We fit a grease trap on the drain from the sinks and dishwasher from the start, otherwise grease will clog the shared riser over time.

In Batumi's humid climate, a storeroom, a back room or any windowless room quickly gets mouldy if the air in it doesn't move. In a clinic or a beauty salon we calculate ventilation for the whole floor area and place the air conditioners so that the airflow doesn't hit clients or workstations.

Fire safety and floor loads

We check the fire safety requirements against the design before buying materials: escape routes, doors, finishes in corridors and halls, alarms, emergency lighting. We are especially careful about this where there are many people or where guests sleep, that is, in cafes, hotels and hostels. For escape routes we choose finishes that are non-combustible or have a certified fire classification.

We check the load on the floor slab when anything heavy goes into the premises: warehouse racking, free weights and gym machines, stone display units, large aquariums. The floor slab of a residential building is designed for residential loads, so a structural engineer reviews such plans against the building's documentation. A load-bearing wall can be removed or opened up for an open-plan hall only with design documentation and a permit.

Commercial renovation in Batumi for an opening date or the season

A commercial renovation has a date that matters more than the estimate: the opening, the start of the season or the end of a rent-free period. Most tourists come to Batumi between July and September, so a cafe, hotel or hostel does well to renovate in autumn and winter, finish the fit-out by summer and open without a rush.

In the contract, the timeline is split into stages with dates. Items with long lead times, such as kitchen equipment, made-to-measure furniture and signage, are ordered while the rough work is still under way.

A hotel or hostel can be renovated without closing: floor by floor or in blocks of rooms, while the rest stay open. We then plan noisy work, waste removal and the crew's movements by the hour, and try to keep the disturbance to guests as small as possible.

Premises in black or white frame, or shell and core

Premises in a new build may come to you in black or white frame. Shell and core means bare premises with the building's shared systems: the service connections, risers and shafts are there, but inside there is nothing. What exactly is handed over is set out in the contract with the developer or owner, and that is the first thing we read.

The fit-out starts with checking the building's documents: where we can connect to the risers, how much power is allocated to the premises, where the ventilation can be taken out. Then we plan the layout around the way you work, and only after that do we work out the detailed estimate.

If you live outside Georgia and have bought the premises to let, the renovation follows the same pattern as for an apartment: one project manager, reports, stage sign-off by video. We photograph concealed work before it is closed up, and the handover file with the routing diagrams will be useful to your tenant as well.