What is included in a tenant improvement permit set?

The architectural core

Every TI set starts with the code framework: the tenant's use and occupancy classification, occupant load, exit count and travel distances, accessibility compliance for the altered area, and the construction type of the base building the space sits in. The drawings show the demolition extent, the new layout, partitions and their ratings where required, doors and hardware, ceilings, and finishes. Where the TI changes the occupancy classification of the space, the analysis deepens — the department reviews the new use against the whole building's allowances — and where the base building's documents are missing, establishing them becomes part of the job.

The engineering the scope triggers

Structural enters when the work touches the skeleton: new openings, mezzanines, heavy equipment or storage loads, rooftop units. Mechanical enters when HVAC is added, moved, or rebalanced for the new layout and occupancy. Electrical covers new panels and circuits, lighting to the energy code, and the devices a new use demands. Plumbing covers added fixtures, kitchen and restroom work, and grease scope for food uses. Each triggered discipline submits its own drawings and calculations, and the sets must agree with each other and with the architecture — the rooftop unit on the mechanical set exists on the structural set, fed by the electrical set, or the correction letter will introduce them.

Compliance documentation and forms

Layered over the drawings: energy compliance documentation where the jurisdiction requires it — lighting and mechanical compliance for the altered systems — plus the jurisdiction's own forms, the landlord's design criteria sign-off where the building requires it, and the deferred submittal list for items like fire sprinkler alterations, fire alarm work, and storefront systems that will be engineered after issuance. Health-department packages for food and medical uses run parallel to the building set. A complete submittal names its deferred items up front; a set that hides them gets them as corrections.

What Torch delivers

Torch produces the engineering portion of TI sets as one coordinated package: every triggered discipline designed against the same architectural set, cross-checked at the interfaces, and sealed by licensed PEs backed by Apex Grid Engineering. We work from the jurisdiction's checklist and the landlord's criteria where they apply, and we state the deferred list in the set rather than leaving it to be discovered. Send the architectural plans and the scope narrative, and we will tell you which disciplines your TI actually triggers — and quote exactly those, as one fee.

The bottom line

A TI permit set is the architectural code package plus every engineering discipline the scope triggers, plus the jurisdiction's compliance documents — coordinated so the sets agree. The scope decides the contents; the checklist proves them.

More engineering answers · Get a quote