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Hotel PIP Budget Overruns? Start With an Accurate As-Built Scan
Most hotel PIP budget overruns trace to outdated drawings. Scanning before design starts lets owners get accurate bids and avoid change orders, Data Capture Service says.
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Data Capture Service, a Dallas-Fort Worth reality capture firm, has rolled out a standard documentation service for hotel Property Improvement Plans. The service targets a problem the firm says is common: owners renovating from drawings that are 15 to 20 years old and multiple renovations out of date.
Franchise brands issue PIPs on a predictable cycle. Owners negotiate the timeline, then face the real question: what will this cost, and how long will the property be disrupted? Most owners budget from a brand scope document, a walk-through, and whatever drawings the previous ownership left behind. That approach, Data Capture Service says, turns every difference between the drawing and the actual building into a change order later.
"The PIP tells you what the brand wants the hotel to become," said Ramon Rodriguez, founder of Data Capture Service. "It does not tell you what the hotel is right now. Most properties are working from original construction drawings that are fifteen or twenty years old and have been through two or three renovations since. The walls moved, the plumbing moved, the ceiling heights changed. When design starts from drawings that don't match the building, every one of those differences turns into a change order later."