Municipal permitting is often blamed for commercial construction delays, with architects pointing to slow city reviews, contractors to unpredictable inspectors, and clients to everyone involved. However, Mike Marden, a registered architect and licensed general contractor at WDS Architecture in Phoenix, argues that the most damaging permit delays stem from how professionals and clients approach the process before ever submitting a single document.
One of the most common ways clients create their own timeline problems is by treating a conversation with a city counter employee as authoritative project guidance. Marden explains that clients often call the city, describe their project in general terms, and receive a response about typical timelines and required documentation—a response that is rarely an accurate picture of what the specific project will require. “They often say, ‘We already spoke with someone at the city. They said we just turn in this form and this is roughly the time,’” Marden says. “First of all, that’s not a documented conversation. There is no log number or record. None of that’s official. And everything on the checklist might not even apply.” The city employee is working from a generic script, not a project-specific assessment, and the checklist they provide may include inapplicable requirements while omitting necessary ones. Clients who plan around such conversations build on a shaky foundation, often discovering discrepancies only after they are already in the review process.
Beyond the information problem, Marden highlights a structural issue in how most commercial projects are sequenced. The conventional approach—complete design, submit for permits, wait for approval, then begin construction—treats permitting as a gate that must be cleared before anything else can happen. This sequential logic is itself a source of unnecessary delay. While permit review is underway, nothing else is happening: the client’s lease clock is running, the contractor is standing by, and trade partners are unavailable for other projects but not yet active on this one. Every week of permit review is a week of pure elapsed time with no construction progress. Marden also notes that the gap between design completion and construction start is often extended by contractor selection and mobilization, compounding the permitting wait. Clients who finish drawings and then begin searching for a contractor add weeks or months to their timeline before a single permit has been submitted. “Did you think about the gap where you’re bidding and trying to find a contractor, meanwhile, permits are ready and you’ve signed the lease?” Marden says.
Professionals who consistently meet their permit timelines do so not by moving faster through the standard process but by compressing the process itself. They engage the city early with preliminary questions rather than waiting for a complete submittal. They understand what specific inspectors in specific jurisdictions actually require, not what a generic checklist suggests. And they begin construction activities that don’t require permits while the review is underway. At WDS Commercial, “We can start building the project as we’re turning in for a permit,” Marden says. “We’re the contractor, already contracted with the Owner, and have spent months participating in the design. If we are questioned or told to turn in drawings, well, we have already done that because we are also the Architect! We can go right up to first inspection with our work, gaining a month versus waiting on bid results, contracts, permits, and mobilization, losing a month or two.” This approach is only possible when the architect and contractor are operating as a single entity or are genuinely integrated from the start. A contractor who receives completed drawings from a separate architect and submits them for permit review has no ability to begin construction in parallel—they’re waiting on a process they didn’t design and can’t fully interpret.
WDS’ dual credentials as both an architecture firm and a general contractor are central to how the organization approaches permitting timelines. Because the same office that produces the drawings is also the contractor, Marden says the firm can begin mobilizing for construction activities that fall outside the permit scope while review is underway—staging, layout, scoping, testing, demo, subcontracting, scheduling crews, and ordering materials—compressing the overall project timeline without cutting corners on compliance. The firm also draws on ongoing relationships with local jurisdictions to develop a realistic picture of what specific projects will require. “Over here, where we do this every day, we know what really needs to go in, how long it’s really going to take,” Marden says. WDS also engages clients on permitting strategy during site selection—before a lease is signed—to help them understand how code compliance requirements, jurisdiction-specific rules, and existing building conditions will affect their timeline. Marden describes a common scenario: a location that appears attractive on price may carry permitting complexity that adds months to the schedule, while a more expensive option on a clean site may actually deliver a faster opening. “It’s like building a project twice, when dealing with existing conditions, removing what is there so that new material can be installed to meet code,” Marden says. A former restaurant space that looks ready for a new restaurant tenant may require extensive code updates that erase the apparent savings—something a client researching on their own would likely miss.
For business owners planning a commercial build-out in Phoenix, the practical implication is direct: the permitting timeline they’ve been told to expect likely understates reality, and the gap between that estimate and the actual timeline often originates in decisions made before a permit application is filed—not in city processing speed.
