The brief

One landlord deadline. Three separate compliance regimes.

A financial-services firm taking 18,000 sq ft of newly-vacated Cat-A space in Mayfair, with a hard move-in date dictated by the lease structure. The landlord had handed back Cat-A shell; the firm needed Cat-B fit-out completed, life-safety-compliant, and signed off by the building’s responsible person — all in 14 weeks.

What looked on paper like a standard fit-out had three regulators sitting under it: BSA-grade compartmentation through the demising walls, fire-detection that integrated with the landlord’s existing addressable system, and a security infrastructure scoped against the firm’s group IT standard. Three trades, three sign-off paths, one calendar.

The approach

One delivery partner. Sequenced workstreams. One project clock.

Phase 01 — Survey + design freeze

Two weeks. Existing compartmentation surveyed against the as-built drawings; gaps, breaches and disagreements documented before any trade started on site. M&E design frozen against the firm’s IT brief and the landlord’s chiller capacity. Critical: nothing went on order until the survey-and-design pack was signed by all three sign-off chains.

Phase 02 — M&E first-fix + compartmentation

Six weeks. Power, lighting, comms containment, chilled-water taps and HVAC ductwork run first-fix; compartmentation works ran in parallel because they share the demising walls. Procore tracked the as-built deviations daily, so the second-fix and life-safety teams worked off a live drawing pack rather than the design freeze.

Phase 03 — Detection + security commissioning

Four weeks. Fire-detection devices installed, addressed and commissioned against the landlord’s panel; security cabling, access-control readers and CCTV installed and commissioned against the firm’s IAM standard. Both systems witnessed and signed off by the responsible person and the firm’s IT security lead on the same week.

Phase 04 — Cat-B finishes + handover

Two weeks. Joinery, finishes, furniture, snagging. The compliance pack (as-built drawings, certificates, asset register) handed over on move-in day — not at six weeks post.

“We could have done this with three contractors and a project manager glueing them together. The fact we didn’t is why we hit the date.” — Head of UK Estates, client (anonymised)

The outcome

Move-in on the contracted date. Compliance pack on day one.

The firm took occupation of the floor on the lease-stipulated date, with the as-built drawing pack, the compliance certificate set, and the asset register handed over the same morning. The building’s responsible person accepted the integrated detection and security commissioning on first witness. No remedials, no extensions, no holdover into the firm’s run-rate.

Metrics

  • 14 weeks from survey kick-off to move-in
  • 18,000 sq ft of Cat-A to Cat-B fit-out
  • 3 regulators sequenced through one programme (BSA, fire, security)
  • 0 days lost to compliance sign-off

Credits

  • Lead company: AMPM Building Services
  • Project team: AMPM Building Services (M&E, fit-out), Gemini AMPM (passive fire, fire detection)
  • Frameworks applied: Building Safety Act 2022, BS 5839 (fire detection), BS 7273 (interfaces)
  • Operating stack: Uptick (asset onboard), Procore (delivery), M365 SharePoint (drawing pack)