Milton Gate

Addleshaw Goddard wanted a new 163,000 square foot headquarters building to help change the way the firm worked, moving from cellular offices to open plan. The project scope included four fee earning floors with open plan offices and internal meeting rooms, client dining on level one with an interconnecting spiral staircase to the ground floor for the staff restaurant and seminar suite. Mace's cost consultancy business Sense was appointed in 2008 to work alongside the client's representative to select a project manager, interior designer and services engineer. The overall project budget, which included furniture, IT, professional fees and removal costs, was benchmarked against a number of other legal fit outs in order to set the client's expectations on quality and cost.

During an intensive ten-day tender review period, Sense met all potential main contractors and their key sub-contractors in order to clarify all tender queries and to manage a complete design review to ensure that any scope gaps and risks were covered either in the secured contract price or by a provisional sum allowance. Sense ensured that robust change management procedures regularly converted provisional allowances into firm costs as the 29-weeks construction programme got underway, with over 70% being agreed in the first seven weeks removing both cost and programme risks. This rigid process allowed the final account to be agreed with the main contractor some five weeks before practical completion