How to set a multifamily amenity budget before design starts
A multifamily amenity budget taken from the 60% construction-document pricing set puts the design team behind, in a phase where you do not want to enter value engineering. Set it first, before concept design begins, from how many residents will actually be outside at once, and the plan has something to fit.
Immerso uses that number on one active multifamily project at a time. The same method covers the landscape around the amenities. For land-development amenities, swap bedrooms for lots. A mixed-use site can use it for the residential piece only. This is not a program for retail or a town center.
Set the number before the plan
Most amenity budgets rely on the pricing set. The clubhouse, the pool, and the courtyard get drawn, and the cost shows up deep into the construction plans. By then the only moves left are cuts.
An early number does the opposite. It says what the package may cost before design starts, so the first plan is drawn to a budget instead of explained against one. It also lets the design team be strategic during design: furnishing selections, lighting fixtures, plant variety counts, and material applications. It’s not about spending more. It’s about spending in the right spaces.
Functional seats
The count is not the unit total, and it is not every bedroom treated as if it were outside on a Saturday.
Bedrooms × 95% occupancy × 35% use = functional seats.
On a typical mix, that is about 0.53 functional seats per unit.
Functional seats × the amenity cost per seat from a comparable project = the amenity budget.
The 95% and 35% are planning factors, not a survey of one community. The cost per seat is not a standard rate. It comes from completed projects that are actually comparable: similar unit mix, similar amenity program, and a known amenity and landscape cost. Without those comparables, the formula has nothing to multiply.
Here is the same example already on the Design Services page. The figures are hypothetical. They are not a real project and not a quote.
A comparable community has 320 bedrooms. 320 × 95% × 35% is about 106 functional seats. Its amenity package cost $800,000, so the cost per seat is about $7,500. A new site with 400 bedrooms has about 133 functional seats. 133 × $7,500 is about a $1,000,000 amenity budget, set before design starts.
The landscape package works the same way. Divide a comparable project’s historical landscape cost by its functional seats, and carry that cost per seat to the new site. Do not reuse $7,500 as a benchmark. A different comparable produces a different seat cost.
The formula is simple. The judgment is in the inputs: which projects are truly comparable, what belongs in the amenity cost, and how the unit mix shifts the seat count. That judgment comes from more than 15 years of amenity and landscape work, which is on About.
What sits in the amenity cost, and what sits in the landscape cost
Keep the two costs apart, or the seat price is mixing two budgets.
The amenity cost is the program residents use: the pool and deck, leisure courtyards, dog parks, and outdoor seating. When they are part of the outdoor package, that includes grills, shade, play, and the furnishings that make those spaces work.
The landscape cost is the site around them: planting, lawn, irrigation where it is in scope, and the walks and walls that are landscape rather than the building.
What belongs in which bucket changes by project. The point of the split is that a pool comparison is not used to price a planting plan, and a planting comparison is not used to price a pool.
What to size now, and what to defer
Functional seats say how much program the site can support. They do not say every item has to be built in the first phase.
Size the spaces that will be full: the deck, the shade, the one courtyard people actually cross. Defer the items that are easy to add later and expensive to maintain empty. A deduct alternate on the bid form is the clean way to show that cut before anyone is under contract. Deleting soil prep, tree protection, or drainage to make the number is not. Those show up after the building is open.
What the free review is, and what it is not
The Amenity and Landscape Budget Review is a free budget and priorities review of one active multifamily project with the estimated room counts. The request has to come from the developer, the owner, or their representative, and it can be made in coordination with the architecture team.
The review needs comparable project data before it starts: amenity and landscape budgets, amenity programs, and unit or bedroom counts from one or more completed projects. Cost per seat comes from those comparables.
What comes back is summary findings: an early amenity and landscape allowance range, where the investment matters most on the site, and one review meeting of about 30 minutes. Analysis, not design.
It does not include drawings, sketches, concepts, planting plans, cost estimates, or sealed documents. Findings are planning guidance. They are not a bid, they are not for construction, they are not for a loan application, and they are not a guarantee of outcome.
The full path, from the first concept through construction documents and construction administration, is on Design Services.