Commercial Construction in Houston, Texas
Sword Construction, LLC is a Houston commercial general contractor headquartered in Kingwood. Bonded, insured, and licensed in 44 states, we deliver ground-up buildings, retail and restaurant construction, tenant finish-outs, and commercial remodels across the Greater Houston area with a working superintendent on every job.
Commercial Construction Services We Deliver in Houston
Every one of our service lines is available across the Houston metro, run from our office in Kingwood. Owners and developers usually come to us for one of four kinds of work. If you are not sure which one your project is, our guide comparing ground-up construction versus tenant finish-out walks through the decision.
Ground-up commercial construction. New buildings on greenfield sites, pad sites in existing shopping centers, and demolition-and-rebuild lots. Our ground-up commercial construction service covers sitework, utilities, structure, envelope, and interior finish under one contract, with the same superintendent from grading to certificate of occupancy.
Retail and restaurant construction. Houston is one of the busiest retail and restaurant development markets in the country, and most of our national program work happens in exactly these building types. Our retail and restaurant construction service handles freestanding prototypes, end-caps, in-line spaces, and drive-thru configurations, and our restaurant construction market page explains how we protect grand-opening dates.
Tenant finish-out and commercial build-out. Turning shell space into a finished office, clinic, store, or restaurant is the most common commercial project in Houston, and it has its own rhythm: landlord work letters, base-building coordination, and hard lease commencement dates. See how we run tenant finish-out and commercial build-out projects.
Commercial remodeling and ADA retrofit. Occupied remodels, expansions, and accessibility upgrades in operating buildings. Our commercial remodeling and ADA retrofit service is built around phasing work so the business keeps trading.
Where We Work in the Greater Houston Area
Our crews and superintendents work the entire Houston metro. The list below is where most of our local projects land, but a site anywhere in the eight-county region is within our normal travel range, and a national rollout that includes Houston locations is delivered by the same team that runs the rest of the program.
- Kingwood, Humble, Atascocita, and the northeast Houston corridor along US-59
- The Woodlands, Spring, Conroe, and Montgomery County
- Downtown Houston, Midtown, Uptown and the Galleria, and the Energy Corridor
- Katy, Cypress, and the west Houston corridor along I-10 and US-290
- Sugar Land, Stafford, Missouri City, and Fort Bend County
- Pearland, League City, Webster, and the Bay Area toward Galveston County
- Baytown, Pasadena, and east Harris County
What Houston Permitting Means for Your Schedule
Houston is unusual among large American cities in having no traditional zoning ordinance, and owners sometimes assume that means a light permitting process. It does not. What Houston has instead is a dense set of development rules enforced at plan review and inspection, and the schedule risk on a Houston commercial project lives in getting those right the first time.
Inside the city limits, commercial permits run through the Houston Permitting Center, with separate structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire, and health reviews depending on the occupancy. Outside the city, in unincorporated Harris County and in the surrounding counties, permits and inspections come from the county engineer, the local fire marshal, and in many cases a municipal utility district for water and sewer taps. Each of those authorities has its own submittal format and its own review timeline, and a project that straddles jurisdictions can face two or three of them at once.
Three items surprise out-of-town owners most often. First, floodplain: Houston and Harris County adopted stricter finished-floor elevation rules after Hurricane Harvey, and a site in the mapped 500-year floodplain can carry elevation and detention requirements that change the civil design and the budget. Second, accessibility: Texas runs its own accessibility program through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, so commercial projects above the state threshold must be registered with a registered accessibility specialist, plan reviewed, and inspected against the Texas Accessibility Standards in addition to any federal ADA obligations. Third, detention and drainage: on-site stormwater detention is a routine requirement on new construction and on many expansions, and it needs to be in the site plan before the first submittal, not discovered at review.
None of this is a reason to avoid building in Houston. It is a reason to hire a contractor who has been through these reviews many times, who can tell you at the bid stage which reviews your project will trigger, and who will flag the items that vary by address so they can be confirmed before design is locked. That is how we run commercial construction across Texas, and Houston is where we have done it most.
The Houston Commercial Projects We Build Most
Our Houston work follows the same pattern as our national program work: repeatable building types for owners who need the schedule to hold. The project types below are where our crews spend most of their time locally.
- Freestanding retail and dollar-store prototypes on pad sites and outparcels, including the automotive parts retail and discount-retail formats that make up much of our national portfolio
- Quick-service and fast-casual restaurants, ground-up and end-cap, with drive-thru and kitchen coordination handled by our restaurant construction team
- Office, medical, and dental tenant finish-outs in Class A and Class B buildings, including the medical and dental office construction work that carries its own plumbing, gas, and shielding requirements
- Industrial and warehouse improvements such as office build-outs inside distribution space, dock and door work, and tenant improvements in industrial and warehouse buildings
- ADA retrofits and occupied remodels for property managers who need the work phased around tenants and customers
Why Houston Owners and Developers Hire Sword Construction
Houston has a deep bench of commercial contractors. Owners and developers choose us for the same reasons our national corporate clients do, and for one advantage that only a locally headquartered firm can offer: the people running your project live here. Learn more about the company on our about page, or browse completed commercial construction projects.
- Bonded and insured at the limits Houston corporate procurement and landlord work letters require, with current certificates available on request
- Licensed in 44 states, which matters to Houston-based owners who roll the same prototype out across the region and the country
- Self-performing crews for the finish trades that most often drive schedule, so a late subcontractor does not become a late opening
- A working superintendent on site every day, not a rotating field rep, coordinating subcontractors and inspections in real time
- Houston permitting and inspection experience across the city, Harris County, and the surrounding jurisdictions, so review comments are anticipated rather than discovered
- The same team for local and national work, so a Houston owner gets the systems built for multi-state rollouts, and a national brand gets local knowledge on its Houston sites. Our superintendents are hired through the careers page and trained on our program work before they run a job alone
How to Get a Bid on a Houston Commercial Project
Send us the plans you have, the site address, and the date you need to open or take occupancy. If the design is not finished, that is fine; we regularly price from a prototype package or a schematic set and refine as drawings develop. We respond within five business days with clarifying questions and a document confirmation, and a full bid follows once scope is nailed down. If you are still choosing between contractors, our buyer’s guide to picking a commercial general contractor lists the documents to ask every bidder for, including ours.
Subcontractors and suppliers who want to work on our Houston projects can see what we are currently bidding and submit their scopes through the projects bidding page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Sword Construction work inside the City of Houston and in the suburbs?
Yes. We work inside the Houston city limits, in unincorporated Harris County, and in the surrounding counties including Montgomery, Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston. Our headquarters is in Kingwood, in northeast Houston.
What size commercial projects does Sword take on in Houston?
Most of our Houston work is single-tenant retail, restaurant, and office projects, plus tenant finish-outs and remodels for property managers. We also deliver multi-site programs for national brands that include Houston locations. Send us the project and we will tell you quickly whether it fits.
How long does a Houston commercial permit take?
It depends on the occupancy, the jurisdiction, and how complete the drawings are at submittal. City of Houston reviews for a typical retail or restaurant shell-and-interior project usually run several weeks, and projects that trigger floodplain, detention, or health-department review take longer. We build the review timeline into the schedule at the bid stage and tell you which reviews your project will need.
Do you self-perform work or subcontract everything?
We self-perform the finish trades that most often affect schedule, including drywall, ceilings, paint, and finish carpentry, and we subcontract specialty trades to a vetted Houston subcontractor base. A Sword superintendent runs the site every day regardless of who is performing the work.
Can you build the same prototype in Houston and in other states?
Yes. We are licensed in 44 states and most of our national clients are retail and restaurant brands rolling out a repeatable prototype. Houston locations are built by the same team and to the same program standards as the rest of the rollout.
Have a Houston Commercial Project?
Send plans, site address, and your target opening date. We respond within five business days.