Shop, Salon, Clinic and Gym Fit-outs in Sydney
We build shops, salons, skin and health clinics and gyms across Sydney, on the street and inside shopping centres: the shopfront, display joinery, basins and treatment rooms, gym floors and acoustic work, built to the landlord's rules and your opening date.
A shop fit-out in Sydney is mostly joinery, shopfront, lighting and finishes, built to the landlord's or shopping centre's rules. Salons and clinics add basins, hot water and the hygiene rules for treatments; gyms add impact flooring, acoustic work and sometimes structural checks. We build all four, by licensed trades for the services, to our architects' drawings or yours, and in shopping centres we work to the centre's contractor rules and hours.
Building inside a shopping centre
A centre approves the builder as well as the design, so the rules shape the program from day one.
The fit-out guide
Under NSW retail lease rules, the fit-out standard has to be set out in a fit-out statement or guide, and you don't have to do work it doesn't include. The guide usually covers the shopfront line, signage, ceilings, lighting and the finishes the centre allows.
Contractor rules
Centres usually ask for site inductions, current insurance certificates, a hoarding across the shopfront while you build and noisy work outside trading hours. We price the night work and the hoarding into the quote, so they don't arrive as extras.
The centre's sign-off
Most centres inspect the finished shop before you trade, alongside the certifier. At Central Eyecare in Punchbowl, the store was designed within its centre's design and tenancy requirements.
Salons, clinics and gyms
Salons and skin clinics
If any treatment penetrates the skin, such as waxing, microdermabrasion or permanent make-up, the business must notify council, and the fit-out needs hand-washing basins, a separate equipment sink and a one-way area for cleaning instruments. We plan the plumbing and hot water for those before the walls go up.
Medical and dental
Treatment rooms add basins in each room, more power and data, and often acoustic walls for privacy. We build them for medical practices, such as a GP's rooms, and for dental clinics.
Gyms
Councils look hardest at noise. Expect impact flooring, a free-weights zone and acoustic work, and a structural engineer's check if the gym is above ground level. At Air Locker, a reduced-oxygen training gym, the specialist equipment added its own needs to the usual gym rules.
Built to the centre's rules and your opening date
A shop that misses its opening date pays rent for an empty tenancy. We plan the night work, the centre's inspections and the long-lead items, such as shopfront glass and joinery, from the day the quote is accepted.
How a shop fit-out build runs
Quote on the drawings
We check the drawings against the centre's or landlord's guide and give you an itemised quote.
Approvals and the centre's sign-off on the design
The landlord's or centre's design approval, and the CDC or DA where the work or the use needs one.
Hoarding, strip-out and services
The hoarding goes up, the old fit-out comes out, and power, plumbing and air-conditioning go in.
Shopfront, joinery and finishes
Walls and ceilings, the shopfront, the joinery made off site and installed, then lighting and finishes.
Inspections and handover
The centre's inspection, trade certificates for your certifier, and the keys back to you.
Shop, salon, clinic and gym build questions
How much does a shop fit-out cost in Sydney?
A Sydney cost guide puts shop and salon fit-outs at about $1,000 to $2,750 per m², including GST, typically about $2,000. The shopfront, joinery and lighting decide most of it, and night work in a centre adds to the labour.
Can you work at night in a shopping centre?
Yes. Most centres require noisy work outside trading hours, and we plan the program and the price around it.
Shopfitter or builder: what's the difference?
A shopfitter's roots are in joinery and display: counters, shelving and shopfronts. A builder runs the whole job, including the walls, ceilings and services by licensed trades. A shop fit-out needs both, and we manage both under one contract.
Does my salon or clinic need council approval?
Often, if the shop was approved for a different use, or if treatments penetrate the skin. See salon and clinic fit-out rules in NSW.
What does a gym fit-out need?
Usually a change of use approval, an acoustic report for the hours you want to open, impact flooring and, above ground level, a structural engineer's report. See gym fit-out requirements in NSW.
Guides for shop, salon, clinic and gym owners
Tell us what you are planning. In a free 15-minute call we will tell you honestly whether we are the right fit, what the approval route looks like and what the sensible next step is.
