SERVICES
Seven practice areas. No published pricing — every engagement is scoped.
Each one draws on the same twenty-five years — and the same engine that reads every document on every project — applied to a different part of the job. Every engagement starts with a quote, never a price list.
WHERE YOU START
Tell us the problem. We'll tell you which service solves it.
Most engagements start at a moment — a bid you don't trust, a draw you can't independently read, a schedule that stopped making sense, a chair that just emptied. Start with the moment; we'll shape the engagement around it. Ten ways people come to us — all served by the same seven practice areas. Find yours, then see the areas it draws on below.
SITUATION 01
“I have capital to deploy and no one in-house who's run a program like this.”
You're an owner or developer moving real money into a project or a portfolio, and you don't have construction leadership on staff to represent your interest against the GC, the architect, and the schedule. We step in as your owner's representative — from a single project through executive-level portfolio oversight — selecting and overseeing the GC, managing the budget and the draws, and reporting the way a capital partner or board needs to see it.
Draws on: Owner's Representation & Program Management · Preconstruction & Bid Advisory
What you get: A principal-level owner's rep who has directed $1.07 billion in capital construction, engaged at the level your project needs.
SITUATION 02
“My project is in trouble.”
Schedule's slipping. Costs are running past the budget. A change-order dispute is starting to look like a claim. You need an outside, independent read on where the job actually stands before it gets worse — or before you're in a room with lawyers instead of contractors. We diagnose the project, validate cost-to-complete, trace the change-order history for the pattern driving it, and give you a documented path forward.
Draws on: Critical Project Analysis & Recovery · Schedule & Delay Analysis
What you get: An honest, evidence-based assessment of where things stand — not a summary written to make anyone feel better about it.
SITUATION 03
“I have a seat to fill and no six months to fill it.”
Your PX left. Your Director of Construction gave notice. The search is going to take longer than the gap you can afford. We place a seasoned executive — Project Executive, VP of Operations, Director of Construction — into the seat now, full-time or fractional, while you run the real search on your timeline instead of a forced one.
Draws on: Fractional, Interim & Retained Leadership
What you get: Coverage starting now, not in Q3.
SITUATION 04
“I need to know if what I'm being told is true.”
You're an owner, and the GC says the job's on schedule and the draw request is accurate — and you'd like a second, independent opinion before you sign off on either. We review draws, validate cost-to-complete, and report independently of the relationship that produced the number in the first place.
Draws on: Owner's Representation & Program Management · Estimating & Quantity Verification · Critical Project Analysis & Recovery
What you get: Verification from someone who has been on the GC side of this exact conversation and knows what the number is supposed to look like.
SITUATION 05
“I need preconstruction depth I can't justify hiring full-time.”
You need a real bid leveling, a real independent estimate review, before you commit to a number — but you don't run twelve months of preconstruction volume a year, so a full department doesn't pencil. We provide that depth project by project: bid package review, bid leveling, estimate reconciliation, constructability and VE review, on the projects that need it.
Draws on: Preconstruction & Bid Advisory · Estimating & Quantity Verification
What you get: Senior preconstruction judgment exactly when the project needs it, without carrying the overhead year-round.
SITUATION 06
“My firm has outgrown its own operations.”
Estimating, buyout, and delivery process haven't kept pace with how the firm actually runs now — and debt, receivables, or lender reporting need executive attention, not another internal memo. We take P&L-level leadership, work the financial fundamentals, and rebuild the operating process underneath the numbers.
Draws on: Fractional, Interim & Retained Leadership · Critical Project Analysis & Recovery
What you get: Leadership that has held a GC's full P&L through exactly this — not an outside advisor theorizing about it.
SITUATION 07
“We run a facility that can't stop for construction.”
Residents live there. Patients are treated there. Operations can't pause, and the people depending on the building can't be displaced or put at risk while the work happens around them. We deliver full-building rehabilitations with residents in place throughout — the sequencing and phasing discipline any continuously-operating facility requires.
Draws on: Owner's Representation & Program Management · Schedule & Delay Analysis
What you get: Someone who has actually run this kind of project, not planned one on paper.
SITUATION 08
“Our capital is in the project — and the only eyes on it are the people asking for the next draw.”
You're a lender, family office, or capital partner with money in a project and no construction staff of your own — so the draw request, the schedule update, and the quarterly report all arrive from the same parties whose numbers they are. We review each package against the record behind it — the draw against the schedule of values and the change-order history, the quarterly report against everything the project has said before — and hand back what the documents support, what they don't, and the questions to send the sponsor before you fund. Bounded, periodic reviews, independent of the sponsor and the contractor — and plain about what a paper review can and cannot verify. The decision stays yours.
Draws on: Owner's Representation & Program Management · Estimating & Quantity Verification · Critical Project Analysis & Recovery
What you get: A second set of eyes on the numbers you're asked to fund — from someone who has directed owner-side capital programs at the billion-dollar scale and run the draw review himself, representing your interest and no one else's.
SITUATION 09
“I'm a public agency or institutional owner and I need someone who actually knows how public work runs.”
Public procurement rules, prevailing-wage compliance, bonding requirements, funding compliance, and the public bid process aren't a variation on private construction — they're a different discipline, with real exposure if they're handled by someone learning them on your project. David has run this discipline directly, not adjacent to it: selecting and overseeing general contractors under public procurement rules, managing prevailing-wage compliance and bonding, and handling draw review, funding compliance, and cost-certification support on a $200–300 million-a-year public capital program.
Draws on: Owner's Representation & Program Management · Critical Project Analysis & Recovery
What you get: Program leadership that has directed $1.07 billion in public capital construction — 185 projects, 125-plus active at once — because David has run this discipline, not studied it.
SITUATION 10
“We're converting an existing building, not building new.”
An adaptive-reuse or repositioning project inherits everything the existing building already is — structural grid, systems capacity, window pattern, code status — whether or not any of that fits what you're converting it into. We evaluate what the building's bones actually allow before the acquisition closes, not after, and manage the delivery discipline a conversion specifically demands.
Draws on: Preconstruction & Bid Advisory · Estimating & Quantity Verification · Schedule & Delay Analysis
What you get: An early, honest read on what the existing building will and won't allow, from someone who has delivered adaptive reuse directly — including a full medical-center conversion completed in under four months.
Owner's Representation & Program Management
What you get: Full owner's representation from Project Executive through executive-level portfolio oversight — GC selection, negotiation, and oversight; design-phase management; delivery-method analysis; draw review, funding compliance, and capital reporting; closeout and cost certification support.
Engine leverage: Every document on every project in your portfolio is read and cross-referenced — not just the ones a human had time for this week.
What an engagement looks like: Scope runs from a single $5–10MM project needing PX-level oversight through a multi-year, multi-project capital program needing portfolio-level reporting to a board or capital partner. The scope changes. The standard of care doesn't.
Request a quotePreconstruction & Bid Advisory
What you get: Bid package review and scope-gap analysis; bid leveling (GC and subcontractor); independent estimate review; constructability and value-engineering review; budget development, benchmarking, and escalation modeling; contract and subcontract risk review — commercial terms only, not legal advice.
Engine leverage: A complete bid package analyzed in hours — every division, every spec section, every addendum — instead of a two-week partial read.
What an engagement looks like: A bid package lands. We review it against the drawings and specs division by division, level the GC and sub numbers side by side, and flag what's underspecified or inconsistent before your team commits estimating hours to a number.
Request a quoteEstimating & Quantity Verification
What you get: Independent quantity verification; estimate reconciliation across owner, GC, and independent numbers; change-order pricing review; allowance and contingency analysis; unit-cost benchmarking.
Engine leverage: Every quantity we report carries its source — you can trace it back to the drawing or spec section it came from.
What an engagement looks like: Owner, GC, and independent quantity take-offs get reconciled line by line, with every quantity traceable back to the drawing or spec section it came from — so a disagreement over a number is a five-minute conversation, not a week-long dispute.
Request a quoteSchedule & Delay Analysis
What you get: Baseline schedule review and logic audit; CPM and schedule-risk analysis; progress and recovery-schedule evaluation; time-impact analysis; delay and disruption review.
Engine leverage: The schedule is read against the actual project documents — does the baseline genuinely reflect the scope that was bought?
What an engagement looks like: The baseline schedule is audited against the actual contract scope, logic ties are checked, and — when a delay claim is forming — a time-impact analysis documents cause and effect before positions harden.
Request a quoteCritical Project Analysis & Recovery
What you get: Troubled-project diagnostics and turnaround; stretch and at-risk project assessment; independent project audits and health checks; cost-to-complete and forecast validation; change-order forensics; support on claims and change-order documentation; lender and capital-partner reporting, draw review, and back-up documentation.
Engine leverage: The full project record — RFIs, submittals, correspondence, change orders — ingested and read for the pattern a chronological human read will miss.
What an engagement looks like: An independent audit of the project's actual status — cost-to-complete, the change-order pattern, the documentation trail — followed by either a recovery plan the team can execute or a defensible record if the project is headed toward a claim.
Request a quoteFractional, Interim & Retained Leadership
What you get: Interim Project Executive, VP of Operations, or Director of Construction; fractional preconstruction or estimating leadership; surge capacity and temporary project support; post-award startup and closeout support; owner-side capability building. Available for full-time, interim, and fractional engagements.
Engine leverage: The same document-reading engine covers your team while the seat is filled — nothing falls through in the gap.
What an engagement looks like: A Project Executive-level placement for the length of a search, or a standing fractional commitment — a day or two a week — for a firm that needs senior oversight but not a full-time hire.
Request a quoteCustom AI & Construction Technology
What you get: Custom AI solutions for owners and contractors — document intelligence, takeoff automation, and reporting automation; process and systems assessment across Procore, Primavera P6, eBuilder, and Bluebeam workflows; AI readiness and build-vs-buy advisory.
Engine leverage: This isn't a construction firm that hired an AI consultant. The principal has personally built and shipped a production AI platform — the same engine this firm runs on.
What an engagement looks like: An assessment of what's actually slowing your team down in Procore, P6, or Bluebeam, followed by a build-vs-buy recommendation and, where it makes sense, a custom tool built the way BuildIQ's own engine was.
Request a quoteMARKETS
HOW WE ENGAGE
Structured however the work needs to be structured.
Six ways to work with us. None of them come with a published number — every engagement is scoped to the project.
By engagement
A defined scope of work, however it needs to be shaped. The engagement follows the problem, not a template.
By project
Scoped to a single project, start to finish, one commitment.
By service
One service line, standalone: a bid leveling, a schedule audit, a single independent estimate review, without engaging anything beyond it.
By the hour
Advisory time, as needed, for the questions that don't require a full engagement.
Weekly or monthly retainer
Ongoing access at a set cadence, for portfolios and programs that need a standing resource.
Interim / fractional leadership
A seat filled, full-time or part-time, for a defined stretch.
We work remotely, with projects anywhere in the country. Part-time and hybrid arrangements in the Chicagoland area may be available.
No published rates — every engagement is scoped to the project. Tell us what you're building, or what's gone wrong, and we'll tell you what it takes.
Professional Services Disclosure
BuildIQ Advisors provides construction advisory and consulting services — including owner's representation and program management, preconstruction and bid advisory, estimating and quantity verification, schedule and delay analysis, project recovery and turnaround advisory, and fractional or interim construction leadership — under a signed engagement agreement between BuildIQ Advisors and the client. These services are performed to the standard of care customary for construction advisory professionals performing similar services in the relevant market at the time services are rendered. BuildIQ Advisors is not a licensed architecture firm, a licensed professional engineering firm, a certified public accounting firm, or a law firm. This site, and the services described on it, do not constitute architectural, engineering, accounting/attest, or legal advice; where such services are required, we recommend the client engage the appropriate licensed professional, and BuildIQ Advisors will identify that need where we observe it. Findings, analyses, and recommendations delivered under an engagement reflect professional judgment applied to the information available at the time and are provided to support — not replace — the client's own decision-making. They are not a certification, warranty, or guarantee of project cost, schedule, or outcome. The scope of services, standard of care, and limitation of liability applicable to any engagement are set out in the executed services agreement, which governs.