There is a conversation that happens on almost every commercial building project in Australia. The structure is complete. The fitout is done. Everyone is waiting on the occupancy certificate. The certifier has flagged the lift. The contractor needs another six weeks. The developer is paying holding costs on a finished building.
Nobody planned for it. And yet it happens on project after project.
The lift typically represents less than 1% of a commercial building's total budget. But without an elevator design consultant involved from the start, that 1% causes a disproportionate share of the delays, defects and compliance problems that follow a building into its operational life. Poor vertical transportation planning is rarely visible until it is too late to fix cheaply. ILCPL has been working as an independent elevator design consultant for over 40 years. We have seen this pattern more times than we can count.
Why the Occupancy Certificate Gets Held Up
An occupancy certificate cannot be issued until all building services are complete and compliant. The lift is always one of the last to be commissioned.
It depends on the shaft being the right size. It depends on structural loadings being correct. It depends on the electrical supply being ready. It depends on multiple trades coordinating access at the same time. When any one of those dependencies slips, the lift contractor cannot start. When the lift contractor cannot start, commissioning is pushed. When commissioning is pushed, the certifier cannot sign off.
This is not just a lift problem. When vertical transportation is treated as an isolated scope of work, delays ripple across concrete pours, structural framing, electrical rough-ins and final finishes. A shaft that is the wrong size is not just a lift issue. It is a structural issue that flows back through every trade that has already worked around it.
The result is a completed building sitting empty. In Sydney or Melbourne, holding costs on a finished commercial building typically run between $5,000 and $20,000 per day depending on the project size and finance structure. One week of delay on an occupancy certificate can cost more than the entire elevator design consultancy fee for the project.
An elevator design consultant prevents this by integrating lift requirements into the project programme from day one. Shaft dimensions are confirmed before the concrete is poured. Compliance documentation is prepared well before the certifier arrives. The lift contractor works from a clear, manufacturer-neutral specification. There are no surprises at handover.
How an Elevator Design Consultant Protects Tenant Satisfaction
When tenants move into a building where the lift is still being commissioned, running on temporary settings or intermittently out of service, that first impression is very hard to reverse.
Tenant satisfaction in commercial office buildings is directly tied to lift performance. Waiting times, ride quality and lift availability during peak periods affect how tenants experience the building every single day. A building that underperforms in its first three months risks losing tenants at the first lease renewal.
These outcomes are set at the design stage. An elevator design consultant conducts a traffic analysis that confirms the correct number of lifts, their speed, their capacity and their configuration to match the actual passenger demand the building will generate. Handling capacity and average waiting time intervals must be calculated in the early design phase, not as an afterthought. When that analysis is left to the lift supplier, the result is a system sized around what the supplier offers, not what the building needs.
Accessibility Compliance Cannot Be Fixed After the Fact
The National Construction Code and AS 1735 set specific requirements for lift accessibility in commercial buildings. These cover car dimensions, door widths, control panel heights and waiting time thresholds for buildings serving people with disabilities.
When an elevator design consultant is not engaged at design stage, accessibility issues are found late. A shaft 50mm too narrow cannot be widened after the concrete is poured. A machine room in the wrong position requires a structural redesign. That redesign flows back through services, programme and cost.
DDA compliance problems found after construction mean rectification works, a delayed occupation certificate and ongoing legal exposure for the building owner. Under NSW legislation, a principal certifier cannot issue an occupation certificate until all compliance declarations for the building work have been lodged. A lift that does not meet AS 1735 requirements is a compliance declaration that cannot be made.
None of that is recoverable on a fixed-price contract.
Why This Keeps Happening and What an Elevator Design Consultant Does About It
The pattern is predictable. A developer appoints a builder. The builder manages the lift as a subcontract. The subcontractor is appointed on price rather than a detailed technical specification. Nobody produced a manufacturer-neutral specification because nobody engaged an elevator design consultant to write one. The shaft dimensions are whatever the architect drew without a lift engineer reviewing them. The lift quantity was determined by a rough rule of thumb, not a traffic analysis.
Every decision seemed reasonable at the time. The cumulative cost shows up when the certifier raises a non-compliance, the contractor raises a variation or the tenant raises a
complaint.
An elevator design consultant addresses every one of these points before they become problems. The engagement produces a traffic analysis, a manufacturer-neutral specification, coordinated CAD drawings and full NCC compliance documentation. The certifier has what they need. The contractor has a clear brief. The tenant gets a building that works on day one.
Talk to ILCPL Before the Hard Decisions Are Already Made
ILCPL is an independent elevator design consultant for commercial and corporate buildings across Australia, New Zealand and Asia. We work with architects, developers, project managers and builders to integrate vertical transport planning into projects from the outset, so that lift planning never becomes the reason an occupancy certificate is delayed.
We engage at feasibility. We produce the specification, the drawings and the compliance documentation. We manage the tender and oversee construction through to final commissioning. And we do all of it without any commercial relationship with a lift manufacturer or supplier.
Talk to our team before the decisions that are hard to reverse have already been made.
