Office renovation
Refurbishment of occupied and vacant offices across Business Bay, DIFC, JLT, Media City, Al Quoz and Silicon Oasis — landlord, free-zone and Civil Defence approvals, partitions, ceilings, flooring, MEP and joinery from our own workshop, under one contract.
A new office fit-out starts from an empty floor. A renovation starts from desks, servers, a reception that cannot close and a lease that is still running. The work has to be zoned, phased and partly done out of hours; the fire strategy has to be re-approved if a single partition moves; and the landlord wants to know how the lift, the lobby and the neighbours will be protected. Most quotations describe the finished office and say nothing about how the business gets there.
We refurbish offices in mainland and free-zone buildings with the method statement written before the price. We survey the existing Category A installation to decide what can stay, agree a phasing plan with you and the landlord, programme noisy work into the windows the building allows, and build partitions, joinery and reception elements in our Al Quoz workshop so they arrive ready to fix rather than being made on your floor.
What an office renovation covers
Most office renovations fall into one of three scopes, and the approvals differ for each.
Cellular to open plan or the reverse, new meeting rooms and focus rooms, with the Civil Defence re-approval it triggers. See the Polygon office.
Frameless glass or solid acoustic partitions, doors and manifestation, with AV containment built in.
Tired tiles replaced with gypsum or exposed ceilings, lighting re-zoned and AC rebalanced to the new plan.
Reception desks, feature walls and signage backdrops made in Al Quoz and installed in a weekend changeover.
Carpet tile, LVT or timber laid zone by zone over the existing floor so desks move once, not twice.
When the existing fit-out has no value, we take it back to Cat A and deliver a new office under our fit-out scope.
Approvals
The landlord, the jurisdiction the building sits in, and Civil Defence the moment a partition moves. We identify the route at survey.
How we handle approvalsThe landlord approves the drawings, the contractor and the method statement, and the facilities manager issues the fit-out rules: permitted hours for noisy work, service-lift bookings, protection of common areas and the refundable deposit. In many towers the landlord also requires the fire strategy to be re-submitted whenever the layout changes, which leads straight to step three.
An office on the mainland goes through Dubai Municipality. In a free zone it goes through that zone’s authority — Dubai Development Authority for the TECOM communities such as Media City, Internet City and Design District; DMCC in JLT; DIFC; JAFZA; Dubai Silicon Oasis — each with its own portal, forms and inspection regime. Submitting to the wrong one wastes weeks. Our office fit-out page explains the split in detail.
The existing office has an approved fire strategy. Moving a partition, adding a meeting room, enclosing a pantry or changing a door swing alters the means of escape and the sprinkler and detection coverage, and Dubai Civil Defence has to approve the new arrangement before work and inspect it before re-occupation. Cosmetic work with no layout change does not trigger this.
Extra load for a server room, new distribution boards or a relocated pantry need DEWA sign-off. At completion the landlord inspects and releases the deposit, and the authority issues its completion certificate, which the landlord will hold against the lease file.
Recent commercial work
Al Quoz, Silicon Oasis, JLT and Sharjah.
Scope & programme
We price from a BOQ after surveying the existing installation, and issue a phased programme that shows which zone is affected when. These are the decisions that move both.
Ceilings, AC, sprinklers and raised floors that are in good order are reused; that is the biggest saving available in a renovation. We survey them before pricing rather than assuming replacement.
New carpet, paint, lighting and joinery within the existing partitions is a refresh. Moving partitions brings Civil Defence re-approval, AC rebalancing and sprinkler head relocation with it.
Working around staff means phasing, dust screens, temporary desks and weekend or night shifts. It costs more and takes longer than a vacant floor, and we show the difference in the quotation.
In an office it is partitions, ceilings and MEP alterations first, then flooring and joinery. Reception and meeting-room joinery is where the design budget shows; back-of-house is where it can be saved.
Free-zone authorities each run their own inspection regime, and some require specific consultants or NOCs the mainland does not. The jurisdiction sets the front of the programme more than the works do.
If the lease ends within a few years, the landlord’s reinstatement clause matters: what you build now you may have to remove. We design the renovation with that clause in view.
Tell us the building, the headcount and what is not working. We will survey the existing installation, agree what can stay, tell you which approvals apply and come back with a phased programme and a BOQ you can compare.
Common questions
Approvals, phasing, free zones and what happens at the end of the lease. If yours is not here, call +971 50 448 3095.
Yes. The landlord or building management must approve the drawings and the contractor and issue a fit-out NOC. The building’s jurisdiction — Dubai Municipality on the mainland, or the free-zone authority such as DDA, DMCC, DIFC, JAFZA or DSO — approves the works. Any change to the layout, means of escape, sprinklers or detection also needs Dubai Civil Defence approval before work and inspection before re-occupation. A refresh of finishes with no layout change usually stops at the landlord NOC. We confirm the route at survey and handle every submission.
Yes, and most of our office renovations are done that way. We split the floor into zones, move one zone at a time to temporary positions, seal the active zone with dust screens and run noisy work in the hours the building permits, with weekend changeovers for flooring and reception. It is slower and costs more than a vacant floor, and we show both options in the quotation so you can decide.
A fit-out starts from an empty Category A shell and builds a complete office. A renovation starts from an existing, usually occupied, fit-out and changes or refreshes it, reusing whatever is still in good order. The approvals overlap, but a renovation adds the question of what the existing Civil Defence approval covers and whether the landlord’s reinstatement clause applies. Our office fit-out page covers the empty-shell route.
Yes. The existing office has an approved fire strategy that shows the escape routes, sprinkler coverage and detector positions. A new meeting room or an enclosed pantry changes that drawing, and Dubai Civil Defence must approve the revised layout and inspect it. It is a routine submission when it is planned in, and a stop-work order when it is not.
Yes, in the detail. Each free-zone authority has its own portal, forms, fees and inspection stages, and some require specific NOCs the mainland does not. A contractor that mostly works on the mainland often submits the wrong set. We work across DDA, DMCC, DIFC, JAFZA and DSO as well as Dubai Municipality and prepare each submission for the authority the building actually sits under. See also our JVC and Downtown Dubai area pages.
Usually some of it, and it is the largest saving available. We survey the Cat A installation — ceiling grid, AC units and ducting, sprinklers, raised floor, lighting — and keep what is sound, rebalancing AC and relocating sprinkler heads to the new layout. Where the existing installation is at the end of its life we say so, because replacing it mid-renovation costs more than planning it.
Yes. Reception desks, feature walls, meeting-room credenzas, pantry units and storage walls are made in our own Al Quoz workshop by our in-house joinery team and installed on site, often in a single weekend changeover. See the Polygon office in Al Quoz for an example.
Most Dubai office leases require the tenant to return the unit to its original condition at expiry. We design the renovation with that clause in view — demountable partitions, floor finishes that lift, services kept within the landlord’s zones — so what you build now does not become an expensive removal later.
Yes. We deliver across the UAE, including Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, with the approval route adjusted for each emirate. Recent commercial work includes the Platform Health Club in Sharjah.
