Houston Commercial General Contractor & Design-Build

Houston metro construction runs from about $48 to $108 per SF for tilt-up warehouse, $148 to $345 for office, $182 to $470 for medical, $185 to $470 for restaurant, $122 to $315 for cold storage, $185 to $625 for hospitality, and $315 to $1,265 for data center. Multiplier is roughly 0.95 to 1.10x of national average (slightly higher than Dallas because of hurricane-resistant detailing and Gulf Coast humidity engineering). Use the cost estimator above and the national cost guide.

TCG builds the full commercial mix across Greater Houston: cold storage and food processing, data centers, medical office buildings and ASCs, restaurants and QSR, cannabis and hemp processing, pre-engineered metal buildings, warehouse, self-storage, industrial and manufacturing, life sciences, hospitality, grocery anchored retail, tenant improvements, and adaptive reuse. IMP installation is a core self-perform.

Houston is the fourth largest US metro by population, the energy capital of the world, home to the Texas Medical Center (the largest medical complex on the planet), the Port of Houston (one of the busiest in the country), one of the densest petrochemical complexes anywhere, deep 3PL and cold storage distribution along I-10 and I-45, and a population growth rate that does not quit. No state income tax, right-to-work labor, and CenterPoint Energy on the ERCOT grid round out the operating environment.

The Texas Medical Center (TMC) is the largest medical complex in the world by floor area and employs roughly 100,000 people across 60+ member institutions. That gravity drives MOB, ASC, urgent care, and freestanding ER pipeline across the entire Houston metro: Sugar Land, The Woodlands, Pearland, Katy, and Friendswood all carry sustained medical demand. Texas does not require Certificate of Need, which accelerates Houston medical construction relative to CON states by 6 to 18 months. See Houston medical construction.

Texas runs an isolated grid (ERCOT). For power-dense facilities (data centers, cold storage, cultivation, manufacturing, refining adjacency) we coordinate the serving utility, typically CenterPoint Energy across Greater Houston, and the ERCOT interconnection process early. Transformer lead times run 40 to 80 weeks. Hurricane Beryl 2024 reinforced Houston grid resilience concerns, so backup power and generator sizing also matter more here than in most Texas metros.

No. Texas repealed Certificate of Need decades ago and does not require it for hospitals, ASCs, MOBs, imaging, or freestanding ERs in most cases. TMC member institutions, HCA, Memorial Hermann, Houston Methodist, MD Anderson, Texas Children's, and the strong freestanding ER market all leverage this. TDLR licensing and local plan review still apply.

Texas operates a limited medical program (the Compassionate Use Program, CUP) for low-THC cannabis with a small set of licensed dispensing organizations. Hemp and CBD processing are legal under the Texas Hemp Farm Act (2019), and Houston's deep chemical processing and logistics labor pool maps well to hemp extraction. TCG actively builds across Greater Houston and brings national cannabis facility experience (a decade and over 1,000,000 SF of IMP installed across 38 states) to Texas operators preparing for expanded program capacity and to current hemp processors. See Houston cannabis construction.

Typical durations: tilt-up warehouse 7 to 11 months, restaurant ground-up 7 to 11 months, medical office 10 to 16 months, cold storage 12 to 19 months (Gulf Coast envelope and dehumidification add to schedule), data center 15 to 26 months, tenant improvement 3 to 7 months. Design-build overlaps design, permitting, and procurement to compress schedule 15 to 30 percent. Hurricane season (June through November) can pause exterior work; we plan envelope closure ahead of peak storm exposure.

Houston sits in the Gulf Coast hurricane zone (Harvey 2017, Ike 2008, Beryl 2024 all caused billions in damage). Commercial construction here needs ASCE 7 wind-rated envelope detailing, windborne debris-resistant openings, IMP face profiles rated for high wind and impact, elevation above the 100-year flood plus freeboard on FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area sites, generator and backup power for extended grid outages, and roof system selection that survives Category 2 to 4 winds. We specify these systems from preconstruction. Houston is also zone 9a hot and very humid year-round, which drives oversized dehumidification on any controlled-environment build.

Greater Houston sits on coastal plain clay with significant shrink-swell behavior. Geotechnical investigation is non-optional, and foundation design typically uses post-tensioned slab on stiffened ribs or pier-and-beam over a structural slab depending on soil report. Foundation costs run 10 to 25 percent higher than equivalent buildings in less expansive soil markets. We coordinate geotech early in preconstruction so the foundation design and budget are honest from day one rather than absorbing change orders mid-schedule.

Design-build puts architecture, engineering, and construction under one contract. For Houston it compresses schedule 15 to 30 percent against design-bid-build, locks pricing earlier, and removes the GC-versus-design finger-pointing that kills budgets. TCG self-performs IMP and specialty flooring, and engineers MEP in-house. Single-source accountability matters more in a hurricane and humidity market where envelope failures cascade into MEP and finishes.

TCG self-performs insulated metal panel installation (over 1,000,000 SF across 38 states) and specialty commercial flooring. We engineer architecture, MEP, and structural in-house, and we GC and CM all other scopes through a vetted Houston subcontractor network. Self-perform on the envelope and flooring protects the critical path, which matters more in Houston where envelope failure means moisture damage that ripples through everything else.

TCG holds a Texas address at 825 Town & Country Ln Suite 850, Houston, builds actively across Greater Houston, and has delivered restaurant (Del Frisco's Grille Woodlands, 3 Forks Steakhouse Woodlands, Perry's Steakhouse Woodlands), hospitality (Hotel ZaZa Austin), healthcare (Davita Dialysis 25 sites across Texas), and industrial projects across the state. National experience includes 38 states and over 1,000,000 SF of IMP.

Sweet spot is $1M to $30M per project. We build smaller (tenant improvement, single restaurant, single dental office) and larger (cold storage 100,000+ SF, data center, multi-site rollouts, refining-adjacent industrial) on a case basis. Single-source design-build delivery is what we do best in that range.

Yes. Owner's representative services are available across all 50 states. TCG acts as the owner's independent advocate from site selection through closeout: GC selection, bid normalization, pay application review, schedule and budget controls, and closeout. Useful when an owner already has a GC but needs builder-grade oversight, particularly on hurricane-exposed sites where envelope and roof spec deserve a second set of eyes.

City of Houston plus The Woodlands, Sugar Land, Katy, Pearland, Cypress, Spring, Conroe, League City, Pasadena, Galveston, Tomball, Missouri City, Friendswood, Humble, Baytown, Webster, and the broader Greater Houston region along I-10, I-45, US-59/I-69, Beltway 8, and the Grand Parkway. TCG also builds in Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio.