Architect's Fees for Stairs to Create Duplex

Has anyone duplexed (after the fact) before in your building? In your line? If not, you could be in for a wild ride. I've expanded up. Even as an experienced renovator, the level of complication was far more than I ever expected.

A lot is going to depend on how easy or difficult it is to make the cut for the staircase opening. You will probably need an engineer (or two), in addition to your architect, and they may need to open your downstairs' neighbor's ceiling to do weight load calculations and give you a good estimate of the potential complication.

In my case, what looked easy ended up being extremely difficult. Everything, unfortunately, was half of a foot to a foot away from being easy.

Your building is the other big wild card. I'm in a small building that was willing to accept our architect's and engineer's reports. Other buildings may require independent reports.

Good luck!

And then there are some buildings that will refuse to even consider a request, no matter how many experts you offer in support of your project.

In my experience, it's at least $2500 to get a structural engineer to opine on anything in NYC.

If this were my apt. I would budget 25K for architecture,engineering,construction etc. on these stairs, if you want any kind of decent finishes.Additionally, the code for stairs is so rigid and has so many details,that you may end up with something that is not where you want it,or is bigger than you want it,and has clearances around it that create other issues.It would be worthwhile to pay an architect for a design/conceptual proposal,before getting too far into this IMHO. The $2,500 that flarf mentions is the tip of the iceberg.

I agree that the code for stairs is not easy. Unless it's an extremely simple situation, $25k could be low. I'd guestimate closer to $35k-$50k including construction.

A conceptual proposal is a good idea and should cost a couple thousand. Keep in mind, though, that an architect's conceptual proposal may not be feasible. You'll likely need a structural engineer and possibly a code expert / expediter to weigh in before an architect can put together anything solid. $2,500 will be about what you'll pay for the structural engineer's initial opinion on feasibility, not including the cost of opening or closing any ceilings or walls (and I suspect you'll need this).

Agreed lad; I was assuming that laeam's instructions to the architect would include that the stair be within their budget,design preferences, and most importantly,that it could be built as designed for that location.Your earlier comment about bldg. approvals is also on the mark.If this is a bigger,fussier,"had bad construction experiences" building,this whole project may not get past the professional review process.

Thank you everyone, for your thoughts and advice. There have been several side by side combos in our building and one up/down combo but it's in a different line than mine. Hoping with that track record that there won't be too much trouble with the building. I'm a little concerned about the wet over dry issue as we'd turn the kitchen into part of a master bedroom suite.

I had a contractor/engineer over to talk about the project and he suggested having an architect do a conceptual proposal before creating a construction estimate. I'm I reading your posts correctly that the architect fee for that proposal should be around $2-3K with the actual construction costs for just the staircase to be in the $35K ballpark? Plus $2-3K for a structural engineer to be involved? I guess my concern would be if the architect or engineer had to open things up to figure out where to put the stairs if they couldn't deduce that from the buildings plans. The feasibility research might begin to cost more than is worthwhile for me. Since I have to do this in order to decide if I can afford the project as a whole, it might be too much to spend.

Thanks again, everyone!

Hey there laeam1--I know this was a long time ago and I may not get an answer here, but did you end up doing this? We are considering the same and curious what happened/how much it cost! Thanks.

i think he got fed up and fired that architect soon after the project started