Pasadena Construction Estimating Services

Most pages that say “Pasadena” have never priced a job inside the city. We’ve priced two. Ten more sit in a ring you could drive end to end in half an hour — South Pasadena and Altadena at 3 miles, Alhambra at 5, Temple City at 7, Monrovia and Glendale at 8, La Crescenta at 10, Burbank at 12.

Nine of the twelve are inside ten miles. That’s the whole pitch.

Here’s what people get wrong about this corner of the map. Pasadena is a charter city. It issues its own building permits, runs its own fire plan check, and sells you your own water through Pasadena Water and Power. Altadena, three miles north, is unincorporated LA County. Different building department. Different fire authority.

Our twelve estimates cross nine permitting authorities. Nine. The drywall goes up the same way in Temple City and Burbank. The fees, the review rounds and the inspection clock don’t. If you carry one set of assumptions across those lines, you’re going to eat the difference yourself.

Then Pasadena’s own rulebook, which is stricter than almost anything near it. Design review isn’t an extra. Under Municipal Code 17.61.030 every project is subject to it unless it’s interior-only, invisible from the street, or a sign under three inches. That’s the default. And it’s priced on its own: Concept Design Review runs $3,479 under 25,000 SF and $15,904 over 100,000 SF on the FY 2027 schedule. Final Design Review is $1,400 at staff level, $2,664 at commission.

That money isn’t in your permit fee. Bids find that out late.

1. Saturday is legal here, and it changes general conditions. Municipal Code 9.36.070 allows construction in residential districts, or within 500 feet of one, Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Saturday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Sunday and holidays are out. A six-day week is a real option. But deliveries run on a different clock — 17.40.070 gives you 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. weekdays in commercial zones, and Saturday doesn’t start until 9:00. Price the crew and the trucks separately.

2. Staff review versus Design Commission review is a fork, and square footage decides it. In the Central District the Director signs off on new structures up to 5,000 SF or residential up to 9 units. Cross 5,000 SF or hit 10 units and you’re at a public hearing in front of the Design Commission. Outside the Central District the line moves to 25,000 SF. Same drawings, different calendar. If you don’t know which side of that line you’re on before you bid, you’re going to guess at a duration you can’t defend.

3. The water utility has a six-to-eight week gate you can’t shorten. Pasadena Water and Power reviews the composite utility drawing in 6–8 weeks. Deposit is $5,000 commercial, $2,000 single family, checks only, credited against the formal estimate. Backflow registration is $180.94 per assembly, and each one sits within 10 feet of the meter, 12 inches above grade, tested yearly by a County-licensed tester. None of it is expensive. All of it is sequential.

4. Fire plan check is Pasadena’s own department, roughly three weeks, and digital only. The Fire Engineering Division takes submittals on a USB drive. No paper. Posted turnaround is about three weeks — worded “not including weekends, regular off-Fridays and holidays.” Read that again. Regular off-Fridays. It’s a 9/80 schedule, so the counter is dark some Fridays. One real break: a TI with 20 or fewer sprinkler heads and no hydraulic calcs gets plan-checked over the counter.

One more, free. Pasadena adopted a mandatory soft-story retrofit ordinance in May 2019 — about 493 buildings, wood-frame, built before November 12, 1976, with parking or open space underneath. Four units and under are exempt. Construction finishes seven years from the owner’s notice date, and Priority 1 notices went out December 2019. Do that math before you price an apartment renovation here.

Twelve real estimates, every total printed on the document.

Full Projects — General Contractors and Developers

• 5 Pasadena Ave, South Pasadena – $2.1M — 91030. Drilled piles P-1 through P-23, HSS trellis framing, brick veneer and stucco, 48 weeks of supervision.
• 9722 Longden Ave, Temple City – $1.4M — 91780. Existing residence and garage demolished, standing seam roof, white oak hardwood, CSI 1 through 16.
• Kwong Residence, South Pasadena – $1.2M — 91030. Gut demo of interior walls and ceilings, new footings, roofing, marble and tile finishes.
• Hampton Residence, Altadena – $954K — 91001. Existing roof structure, deck and steps demolished, CMU pilasters, 6,783.82 SF of wall painting.

Retail & Restaurant Build-Outs — Retail, Restaurant & Cafe Tenants

• Alhambra Dollar Tree #13132 – $254K — 91801. Seismic ceiling bracing, six partition types, walls painted to 22 feet high.
• ALO Pasadena – $145K — 91105. Drop soffit light cove, skylight cove, metal stud partitions to a 15-foot deck.
• HotTopic, Glendale Galleria – $63K — 91210. Drywall soffits and headers, wall patch and repair at six heights.
• Tumi Store, Glendale – $54K — 91204. Framed ceilings, porcelain tile in two sizes, stainless transition strip.

Tenant Improvements & Renovations — Existing Buildings and Interior Build-Outs

• Foothill Terrace Luxury Apartments, La Crescenta – $1.9M — 91214. Three buildings, eleven pages. 89,357.28 SF of wall painting alone.
• Avion Burbank, Building 4 – $912K — 91505. Steel beams, stairways, acoustical ceilings, furring walls two floors.
• Monrovia Christian Science Church – $285K — 91016. Demo, new ceiling structure, storefront caulking, glass walls.
• 623 Rim Rd ADU Pasadena – $154K — 91107. A garage conversion. Slab saw-cut, garage doors and vaulted ceiling out, rebuilt as a dwelling.

Honest range: $54K to $2.1M. Two-page paint package up to an eight-page ground-up.

Two zips are printed on our own estimates, at opposite ends of the city.

91107 — East Pasadena. Sierra Madre Villa, Chapman Woods, the Foothill and East Colorado corridors, the Metro A Line terminus. 623 Rim Rd ADU is here. It’s also the most unsettled ground in the city. The East Pasadena Specific Plan, adopted in 2000, is getting its first full update. A Planning Commission study session on March 11, 2026 looked at up to 87 units per acre south of Foothill and along Colorado, 32 to 48 north of it, and five stories near the Sierra Madre Villa station. Feedback only, no action. Check where it landed before you price there.

91105 — West and south. Arroyo Seco, San Rafael, the west end of the Colorado spine. ALO Pasadena is here.

Zoning follows specific plans, not plain districts — eight of them, including Central District, East Colorado, South Fair Oaks, Lincoln Avenue and North Lake. Fair Oaks/Orange Grove is being revised.

Then the historic layer, which is what out-of-town bidders never see coming. Bungalow Heaven, Old Pasadena, Historic Highlands, Arroyo Terrace, Ford Place, the Civic Center, the Playhouse district. Any new construction, alteration, addition, relocation or demolition inside a historic district needs a Certificate of Appropriateness — $525 at staff, $1,643 at the Historic Preservation Commission — plus written confirmation the work meets the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards, before the permit issues.

Then the ring: South Pasadena 91030, Altadena 91001, Alhambra 91801, Temple City 91780, Monrovia 91016, Glendale 91210 and 91204, La Crescenta 91214, Burbank 91505.

One practical note on Altadena. It rebuilds through Los Angeles County, not Pasadena — the One-Stop Permit Center on West Woodbury Road, walk-in weekdays 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The County’s posted review clock is 10 business days for a first review, 5 for later ones. Like-for-like lets you add 200 SF or 10%, whichever is greater, in the Eaton Fire area; it skips zoning compliance but still meets current Building, Fire and Health and Safety codes. Price it under County rules.

Three groups, and they want three different documents.

General contractors and developers bidding whole scope. You need CSI divisions, a schedule of values a lender will take, and quantities you can hand straight to a sub. That’s 5 Pasadena Ave and 9722 Longden Ave.

Retail, restaurant and cafe tenants on a landlord’s clock. Fixed turnover date, fixed brand standard, no room to be wrong. That’s ALO, Dollar Tree, HotTopic and Tumi.

Owners and subs working inside standing buildings — tenant improvements, renovations, ADUs, apartment repaints. That’s Foothill Terrace, Avion Burbank, the Monrovia church and the Rim Rd conversion.

Our Pasadena construction estimating services get built the same way every time: quantities off the drawings, line by line, with labor, equipment, material and subcontractor markup in separate columns. You get a cost estimator who has already priced work in this zip code and the eight around it. No templates. No national square-foot averages dropped on a San Gabriel Valley job.

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