Colorado Construction Estimating Services

Colorado doesn’t have a statewide building code. It’s a home-rule state. Every city and county adopts and enforces its own code, and the state only steps in on one thing: energy.

That one thing matters. Since July 1, 2023, any jurisdiction that updated its building code had to adopt the 2021 or 2024 IECC and the Colorado Model Electric Ready and Solar Ready Code along with it. From July 1, 2026, the bar moved again — a jurisdiction that adopts or updates any building code now has to adopt the Colorado Model Low Energy and Carbon Code, or something stricter. So the envelope, the electrical rough-in and the roof on a new building in Colorado are priced against a newer standard than most of the country, and the standard depends on when your city last touched its code.

Denver is on the 2022 Denver Building and Fire Code, built on the 2021 I-codes, effective May 1, 2023. Drive forty minutes in any direction and you’re under a different book with different amendments.

Then there’s the tax. Colorado doesn’t tax construction labor when it’s listed separately on the bid or the contract. Materials are a different story, and how they’re taxed depends on how you wrote the deal. On a lump-sum contract, you’re the consumer — you pay sales tax when you buy the materials, or use tax if the supplier didn’t collect it. On a time-and-materials contract, you’re a retailer: you buy tax-free, collect the tax from the owner, and you need a sales tax license to do it. And the local piece gets settled at the permit counter. Show the supplier a building permit that documents the city or county use tax, and no local sales tax comes off the material invoice. Home-rule cities run their own tax departments, so the answer in Denver isn’t the answer in Aurora.

Under all of it is the dirt. The Colorado Geological Survey calls swelling soil “a common and sometimes serious problem in Colorado,” and the state requires a disclosure for new houses built on it. That’s why the foundation line on a Colorado house or duplex carries a soils report, and often a deeper or stiffer system than the same plan would get somewhere else.

Every one of these has cost somebody real money.

1. The energy code date. Not the edition your drawings say — the edition your city is enforcing on the day you pull the permit. A jurisdiction that updates its code after July 1, 2026 has to bring in the Model Low Energy and Carbon Code. If you price a job off the code the architect used last year, you’re going to find the difference in the insulation, the glazing and the electrical panel.

2. The permit math. Denver’s schedule charges $5,385 for the first million dollars of valuation plus $3.65 per thousand above it, then plan review at 50% of the permit fee on top. Want it reviewed same day? That’s another 20% of the permit fee. A phased permit adds 25% or 50%. It belongs in General Conditions, priced against the valuation the city will use, not the number you’d like it to be.

3. The wage rate on state work. A state-agency project of $500,000 or more carries Colorado prevailing wage. At $1 million and up, the mechanical, sheet metal, fire suppression, sprinkler, electrical and plumbing subs have to be in registered apprenticeship programs. That rule doesn’t reach city or county work, CDOT, or federally funded jobs — but if the owner is the State of Colorado, it’s in the number or the number is wrong.

4. The soils report. Expansive clay doesn’t show up on the architectural set. It shows up in the geotech report, and the foundation, the slab and the flatwork get priced off that. If you bid a Front Range foundation off a typical detail, you’re going to eat the difference between what you drew and what the engineer stamps.

We don’t ask you to take our word for it. Sixteen real Colorado estimates are on this page — four in each of the four categories we work in. $64M of construction value across 144 pages of takeoff and pricing. Open them. Read the line items. See exactly what you get before you send us a single sheet.

Commercial Buildings — ground-up retail, hospitality and institutional.

• Longmont Climbing, Longmont – $7.8M (80504)
• Growing Minds Learning Academy, Boulder – $3M (80301)
• The Warehouse Project, Denver – $2.6M (80204)
• Fort Collins Marriott – $1.1M (Fort Collins 80525)

Multi Family and Apartments — apartments, condos and multi-unit housing.

• Ambience Apartments – BLDG 1, Denver – $10.1M (80220)
• East Star Court 5-Plex, Montrose – $3M (81401)
• Miradoro Apartments Building 1, Vail – $2.1M (81657)
• Sable Run Duplex, Aurora – $872K (80045)

Residential — custom homes, ADUs and whole-house remodels.

• 1020 S Starwood Drive Residence, Aspen – $7.5M (81611)
• 4655 S Ogden Street Residence, Englewood – $2.6M (80113)
• York Street Residence, Denver – $1.8M (80210)
• 817 Merrit, Steamboat Springs – $508K (80487)

Tenant Buildouts — interior fit-outs in existing buildings.

• Amazon, Aurora – $19.6M (80018)
• Crunch Fitness, Denver – $987K (80231)
• Nordstrom Rack, Dillon – $307K (80435)
• Starbucks Hampden and Tower, Aurora – $117K (80013)

Four building types. Denver and the Front Range up to Fort Collins, over the divide to Vail, Aspen and Steamboat, down to Montrose on the Western Slope. From a $117K Starbucks to a $19.6M interior build. That range is the whole point — most shops price one lane and call it a service.

Look at the Amazon job. $19.6M and twelve pages, and there isn’t a yard of concrete in it. It’s an interior — framing, millwork, insulation, doors, finishes — priced line by line, with the security wall panels and the specialty barriers called out as their own items. A fit-out that size lives or dies on quantities, and every one of them is shown.

Same story on the Longmont climbing gym. $7.8M, fifteen pages, General Conditions through electrical, sitework and demolition on the front end. A tall single-volume box with a lot of steel and a lot of finish detail — and every division is there to read.

We estimate statewide. Here’s where the volume actually is.

Denver and the metro. Denver, Aurora, Englewood, Lakewood, Littleton, Thornton, Westminster, Arvada and Commerce City. Seven of the sixteen estimates above are Denver-metro jobs, from the Ambience apartments to the Amazon interior. The 2022 Denver code is the one in play, and the permit fee schedule above is Denver’s.

The northern Front Range. Boulder, Longmont, Broomfield, Loveland, Fort Collins and Greeley. Three of the sixteen are here — the Boulder learning academy, the Longmont climbing gym and the Fort Collins Marriott.

Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Colorado Springs, Monument, Castle Rock and Pueblo. Own codes, own permit counters. We price to whichever book the city is enforcing.

The mountain towns. Vail, Aspen, Snowmass, Breckenridge, Dillon, Winter Park and Steamboat Springs. Four of the sixteen are mountain jobs. Long hauls, short seasons and a sub market that’s thin in the summer — durations and General Conditions carry that, or the number is light.

The Western Slope. Grand Junction, Montrose, Durango, Glenwood Springs and Carbondale. The Montrose five-plex is on this page.

Every one of those cities has its own page with local detail. Start there if you want the county-level specifics.

General contractors bidding hard-bid and negotiated work. Subs who need a takeoff that survives a scope review. Developers who want a real number before they commit capital. Architects who’d rather price a design now than explain a surprise at bid day.

If you’re a GC in Colorado turning down invitations because you can’t get numbers out fast enough, you’re going to keep leaving work on the table until somebody else does the takeoff for you. That’s what our Colorado construction estimating services are built to fix. You send the plans. We send back a priced estimate with the quantities shown, in a format you can hand straight to a client or an owner.

We’re not a lead service and we’re not a software subscription. A person does the takeoff. Another person checks it. You can call and ask why a number is what it is, and get an answer.

What you’re hiring is a cost estimator who has already priced work under your city’s code, on your soil, at your city’s permit schedule, with the energy code your jurisdiction is actually enforcing. Not a national square-foot average with the word Colorado written on top.

Send us your plans. We’ll tell you what it costs.