About this episode

The episode discusses the implications of architectural fees in club design, emphasizing the long-term costs associated with choosing the cheapest bid.

An honest insider look at architectural fees in the club space: what they cover, how they're structured, and why the lowest bid is almost always the most expensive choice your club will ever make. A walk through the real economics of an architecture firm, the line-by-line breakdown of where an 8% fee actually goes, and the concrete difference between a 4% engagement and a 10% engagement on the same $10M project. Topics discussed: industry-standard fee ranges for complex commercial projects (6–12% of construction cost); how fees get divided between consultants, labor, and overhead; the typical margin architects net on club work; what gets cut when fees get cut — staffing intensity, thinking time, coordination, detail, and construction administration; the underbid-and-change-order business model and how to spot it; why "which firm is cheapest" is the wrong RFP question; what clubs actually receive when they pay a premium fee; and why the design fee is the single highest-leverage dollar in the entire project because it determines how well every other dollar gets spent. The core argument: the variable that most affects project quality is the design fee, and the fee differential…

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