Start With What You Have
Before any product selection, contractor outreach, or budget development, a building-wide window replacement begins with an honest assessment of the existing system.
What is currently installed — product type, approximate age, frame material, and current condition? What does the existing installation look like — are windows set in the original rough openings, or have they already been replaced once? Are there active water intrusion issues, hardware failures, or units with deferred maintenance that have accumulated damage? What are the hurricane protection ratings of the current windows, and are they still acceptable under current code and insurance requirements?
This assessment does not need to be exhaustive at the outset. But going into the planning process without a baseline understanding of what you are replacing leads to scope surprises later.
Define the Full Scope Before Pricing It
One of the most common planning errors in building-wide projects is under-scoping the initial bid request and discovering the full scope later — after pricing has been established and budgets have been set.
The full scope of a building-wide glazing project typically includes unit windows, unit sliding glass doors, any fixed glass panels in unit balconies or terraces, common area glazing, and ancillary work such as stucco patching, caulking, and hardware replacement.
The unit windows are obvious. The sliding glass doors are usually obvious. The common area glazing — lobby entrances, amenity buildings, management offices, pool enclosures, fitness centers — is often omitted from early scope discussions and then added back later, at a point when the budget has already been set and contractors have already been selected.
Get everything into scope before pricing begins. It is far easier to adjust the budget upward at the planning stage than to manage scope additions mid-project.
Product Selection Comes Before Contractor Selection
Boards sometimes issue requests for proposal without specifying product, expecting contractors to propose their preferred brands. This produces bids that cannot be meaningfully compared — each contractor proposes a different product at a different price, and the board ends up comparing unlike things.
The better approach: evaluate products first, select the specification, then solicit bids on a common scope. Product selection for a building-wide project involves performance criteria, building code compliance, aesthetic requirements, and budget parameters. The products available for multi-unit projects include the same manufacturers used in residential installations — PGT, ES Windows, CGI — but the project volumes involved typically access commercial-tier pricing and, in some cases, products designed specifically for the multi-family market.
For most South Florida condominium buildings, aluminum frames are the standard. Vinyl has limited application in high-rise environments. Frame finish and color matching to the existing building facade is often an HOA or municipality requirement that constrains the selection.
Permitting Is Not Optional or Delegable
Every window replacement in Florida requires a building permit. In a multi-unit building, this means a permit for every unit. A 200-unit building has 200 permitted scopes. The permitting timeline in South Florida varies significantly by municipality — Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach County building departments each have their own processes, review timelines, and inspector scheduling constraints.
The permitting process is the contractor's responsibility — a qualified contractor handles applications, follows up on reviews, schedules inspections, and manages the permit through final closeout. But boards should understand what is involved and build realistic timelines around permitting realities rather than optimistic assumptions.
In most cases, work cannot begin on a unit until that unit's permit is in active status. On a large building, permits are often pulled in batches, with installation proceeding in the sections where permits have been approved while applications are still pending for others.
Phasing Strategy
Phasing decisions should be made before the project begins, not as a reaction to budget or scheduling pressure mid-project.
By floor or section: The most common approach. The building is divided into logical sections, with one section completed before the next begins. This concentrates disruption, allows the crew to work efficiently in a contained area, and creates predictable scheduling for residents.
By building priority: High-exposure elevations — typically those facing the ocean or prevailing storm direction — are addressed first, followed by protected elevations. This makes sense if storm protection is the primary driver and budget phasing requires it.
By unit type: Some associations address all units of a certain type (e.g., corner units with more openings) before proceeding to others. This works well when there is a significant difference in scope and cost between unit types.
All at once: For smaller buildings or where the schedule demands completion in a single season, whole-building projects on a compressed timeline are feasible. They require more intensive coordination and resident communication, but they eliminate the administrative overhead of managing a multi-year program.
Whatever phasing approach is chosen, document it in the project plan and communicate it to residents before work begins.
Building the Budget
A realistic project budget includes more than the contractor's installation quote.
Permit fees: Calculated per unit or per opening, varying by municipality. In some jurisdictions the fees are modest. In others they are meaningful at scale.
Engineering coordination: Many projects require a structural engineer of record to review and stamp the installation drawings. This is a direct cost that belongs in the budget.
Structural remediation: Openings with water damage, deteriorated framing, or structural issues identified during installation will require repair before window installation proceeds. The extent of this work is unknown until installation begins. A contingency of five to ten percent of the contract value is reasonable for older buildings.
Stucco and finish work: Impact window installation almost always disturbs the exterior stucco around the opening. Patching and refinishing is part of the project scope and should be explicitly included in the contractor's bid — if it is not, ask why.
Resident accommodation costs: In some projects, particularly where installation is disruptive or requires extended interior access, boards have provided residents with accommodation allowances. This is not universal, but it is a real cost in some circumstances.
Contingency: For any project of this scale, a contingency reserve of five to ten percent of total project cost is appropriate.
What Good Contractor Communication Looks Like
On a multi-unit project, communication is as important as technical execution. Before selecting a contractor, understand how they manage resident scheduling, how they handle missed appointments and unit access issues, what the escalation process is for problems, and how they report progress to the board.
A contractor who cannot clearly answer these questions has not managed projects of this scale. A contractor who has a documented process for each is more likely to execute predictably.