What Does Commercial Tenant Improvement Electrical Work Cost?
You are negotiating a lease. The landlord offers a tenant improvement allowance of $40 per square foot for the whole buildout. Your designer says you will spend $25 on finishes and $15 on MEP. You sign the lease. Then your electrician walks the space and tells you the existing panel doesn't have room for your equipment, the lighting layout the architect drew doesn't match the existing circuits, and the kitchen exhaust the dealer specified needs three new dedicated circuits and a roof penetration.
And that conversation is where every TI project either stays on budget or quietly slides $20,000 over. The electrical scope is the piece most often underestimated at signing, because it's the piece most affected by what's already in the space — which nobody has actually looked at yet.
Here's how commercial TI electrical pricing actually breaks down — by tier, by use type, and by what bumps a project from one row to the next.
The Three Tiers, By Scope
Commercial TI electrical work splits into three rough tiers based on how much new electrical infrastructure the buildout needs. But most projects sit at one tier; a few straddle two. The dollar ranges below cover the electrical scope only (no general construction, no plumbing, no HVAC).
| Tier | What's in scope | Typical cost per sq ft | Example project types |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | New lighting layout reusing existing circuits, replacement of receptacles to current code, minor panel adds (1-2 new circuits for AV or workstations) | $4-$7 / sq ft | Small office refresh, retail signage refresh, single-room conference build |
| Mid-range | New dedicated circuits for equipment, partial rewiring, new lighting fixtures, modest subpanel addition, accessibility upgrades, life-safety updates | $8-$12/sq ft | Full office buildout, professional services suite, small retail conversion, light medical |
| Full-scope | New subpanel or service upgrade, kitchen or lab equipment circuits, dedicated HVAC feeds, complex lighting design, life-safety + accessibility + emergency power, exterior signage | $13-$25+/sq ft | Restaurant, medical clinic, light industrial, lab, fitness studio, anything with a public assembly load |
The table is the starting point. The next section is what shifts a project from one tier to another — and where the surprises come from.
What Bumps a Project Up a Tier
Five things move the price.
The use type changes the load profile. An office full of laptops and screens is a light load. A restaurant with eight pieces of cooking equipment, a walk-in cooler, and an exhaust hood is a heavy load. A medical clinic with imaging equipment is somewhere in between, but adds dedicated isolated-ground circuits. The use type alone moves a project from "Basic" to "Full-scope" before any other factor.
The existing service may not have capacity. Most tenant spaces inherit a panel that was sized for the previous tenant. If your new use draws more power, the existing panel and feeder may not carry it. A load calculation tells you in the first walk-through whether you need a service upgrade. A service upgrade costs $10,000- $50,000, depending on the building.
The existing panel may not have slots. Even when the service has capacity, the panel itself may be full. Adding new circuits then means either a new subpanel or replacing the panel with a higher slot count. A subpanel is usually the cleaner answer and adds $3,000-$8,000.
The space hasn't been opened up in 20 years. Walls come down, ceilings come out, and the electrician finds aluminum wiring, non-listed splices, junction boxes buried in drywall, and ungrounded outlets. Each item has to be brought to current standards before the new work can sign off. This is the "existing conditions" line item that swings the most.
The use triggers life-safety or accessibility upgrades. A new occupancy classification (assembly, medical, food service) brings updated requirements for emergency lighting, exit signs, fire alarm integration, and accessible-height switches and outlets throughout the space — not just in the new work. That can add $2-$5 per square foot on its own.
How a Real Quote Is Built
A scoped commercial TI electrical quote isn't one round number. It's a breakdown by component, with each line tied to a specific deliverable. A real quote on a mid-range office buildout might look like this.
| Quote line | What it covers | Typical % of TI electrical total |
|---|---|---|
| Panel work | New subpanel (if needed), feeder from main, new branch breakers, panel schedule | 10-20% |
| Lighting package | New fixtures, dimming or sensor controls, switching, and layout per architect | 25-35% |
| Power distribution | New dedicated circuits, receptacles per code, workstation feeds, equipment circuits | 20-30% |
| Life-safety | Emergency lighting, exit signs, fire alarm tie-in or upgrade, smoke detectors | 8-15% |
| Demolition and rework | Removal of old circuits, splice-out of dead legs, drywall openings for new pulls | 5-10% |
| Permit and inspection | Plan check, rough inspection, final inspection, contractor's permit pull | 3-5% |
| Existing-conditions allowance | Reserve for problems found in walls (recommended 5-10% of subtotal) | 5-10% |
But a quote without an existing-conditions line is a quote that hasn't walked the space carefully — or one that's going to come back as a change order halfway through.
Where the Cost Surprises Hide
Three places, every time.
The panel and the feeder. The most common surprise on TI work is that the existing service isn't sized for the new use. The first quote assumes it is. The change order to upgrade the service is in five figures. The way to avoid it is the load calculation at the lease-walk stage.
The path from the panel to the new circuits. Open ceilings in the warehouse part of the space are easy. Plenum-rated cable in a finished office is more expensive. A 200-foot run from a panel on the wrong side of the space adds days to the job.
The discovery in the walls. Aluminum wiring from a 1972 buildout. A junction box that was buried when the last tenant added drywall. A panel that was never permitted. Every discovery is a separate change order if it wasn't reserved for in the original quote.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sometimes — depends on your use. If the previous tenant was an office and you're an office as well, reusing the existing infrastructure may save 30-50% on the electrical budget. If the previous tenant was a yoga studio and you're a coffee shop, the new equipment loads don't match what's there, and you'll need new circuits for most of the equipment.
A load calculation, done by a licensed electrician on a single walk-through. It compares your equipment list and lighting plan against the existing service rating and what's already in use elsewhere in the building. Takes about two hours and produces a written number. The number is what your designer should use to scope the electrical TI.
For a space built before 2000, plan on 10% of the electrical subtotal. For a space built between 2000 and 2015, 7%. For newer spaces, 5%. If the space has been remodeled multiple times by different tenants, double the reserve — there's almost always something behind the walls that doesn't match the as-built drawings.
Sometimes. A service upgrade benefits the building permanently, so some landlords will pay for it (or amortize it through the lease). The negotiation hinges on whether your TI is driving the upgrade or whether the building was going to need it anyway. Worth raising before signing the lease.
Not on a heavier use type. A $40-per-square-foot TI allowance typically covers a basic to mid-range buildout. A restaurant or medical clinic buildout usually requires the tenant to put additional capital into the electrical scope beyond the allowance. Plan for that early.
Two to six weeks for a Basic-to-Mid-range buildout, four to twelve weeks for a Full-scope scope. The electrical schedule is driven by inspection sequencing — rough before drywall, final before occupancy — so it dictates the overall TI calendar more than most other trades.
Get the Walk-Through Before You Sign
The single biggest predictor of whether a commercial TI lands on budget is whether somebody walked the space with the electrician before the lease was signed. Once the ink is dry, the landlord's TI allowance is fixed, the architect's plans are already drawn against assumptions, and any surprise in the walls becomes the tenant's problem to absorb. A two-hour walk-through and a one-page report at the front of the project is the cheapest insurance you can buy on the budget.
