A 3D scan turns the guesswork out of a pro forma: measured area, volume, and existing-condition geometry for a building, captured before capital gets committed to converting it, expanding it, or buying it. Owners and developers who scan ahead of a decision are working from what a building actually is, not from an assessor's card, an old rent roll, or a set of drawings nobody has field-verified in years.
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The problem: capital committed before the building is actually known
Underwriting runs on numbers, and too many of the numbers behind a conversion, an expansion, or an acquisition come from somewhere other than the building itself. Gross and rentable area gets pulled from an assessor's record or a marketing package. Floor-to-floor height and clear span get estimated from an old drawing set, or from a walk-through with a tape measure that only checks the dimensions someone remembered to check. None of that is dishonest — it is just how a pro forma usually gets built under a deal timeline — but every one of those numbers is an assumption standing in for a measurement.
The assumption becomes expensive the moment it turns out wrong, and it tends to turn out wrong at the worst point in the schedule: after the deal has closed, after the design has progressed far enough that a dimension is load-bearing in the budget, or after a contractor has priced the job against a drawing that does not match the field. A conversion that assumed a floor-to-floor height it does not have, or a buildable volume that the real structural grid does not actually allow, turns into a change order or a redesign instead of a line item in diligence.
A scan replaces the assumption with a measured record, captured early enough to inform the number rather than correct it later. The same dataset that verifies area and volume for the pro forma becomes the existing-conditions basis the design team designs against once the deal moves forward, so the building gets measured once instead of guessed at repeatedly.
What gets captured, from diligence through design
Owner-driven capture spans two different moments — verifying a number before a decision, and handing a design team a measured starting point — and the scope usually reflects which one is in front of you.
Gross and rentable area
Area measured directly from the building rather than taken from an assessor's card, an old rent roll, or a marketing package — the number a pro forma, a lender package, or a leasing plan actually needs to be right.
Floor-to-floor height and structural grid
Clear span, column spacing, and floor-to-floor dimensions recorded as they actually exist, which is what a conversion or an addition has to design against, not what a stacking diagram assumes.
Envelope and expansion potential
Exterior wall position, height, and setback conditions relevant to an expansion, an addition, or a change of use, tied to a control network the design team can build on later.
Site and parking
Drone mapping adds site topography, pavement, and parking geometry to the same package where a development decision depends on the land as much as the building.
Structure and visible conditions above ceilings
Visible ductwork, piping, and structure in accessible plenums and chases, recorded as existing-conditions geometry — useful for an early feasibility read, not a substitute for a coordinated systems model once design starts.
What you receive
Diligence and design want different things from the same capture, so most owner-driven projects end up using more than one deliverable from the same visit.
Point cloud
The registered measured record itself, available immediately for anyone on the deal team who needs to check a dimension directly rather than wait on a drawing.
Measured area report and floor plans
Verified area and layout for a pro forma, a lender package, or a leasing plan, cut from the same measured record rather than estimated separately.
Existing-conditions CAD or Revit model
A measured starting point for the design team once the project moves from decision to design, scoped to the level of detail that phase actually needs.
Registration and QA report
The control network, registration residuals, and a coverage note stating what was and was not visible, so anyone relying on the numbers knows what they can be trusted to say.
What owners and developers ask us
01Can you scan during a diligence window, before we've closed?
Yes, provided access can be arranged with the seller or their broker, the same way any other diligence inspection gets scheduled. Scanning ahead of closing lets a measured record inform the number instead of only confirming it after the fact, which is the point of doing it during diligence rather than after.
02Will the measured area match what we've been told the building is?
Sometimes not, and that gap is exactly what the scan is for. The dataset reports area and volume as measured from the building itself; reconciling that against a specific leasing or area-measurement standard is a conversation for your team, but the underlying number comes from the field rather than from a record that may be years out of date.
03How does this actually feed a pro forma?
Measured area, floor-to-floor height, and structural grid replace the estimated versions of those same numbers wherever the pro forma currently relies on an assumption, which tends to matter most on a conversion or an addition where the existing structure sets real limits on what the deal can actually do.
04We haven't decided between renovation and teardown — is scanning still worth it?
Generally yes, because a measured record supports either path. If the project moves toward renovation or conversion, the scan is the design basis. If it moves toward demolition, the same capture is a clean record of the building as it stood, taken before that option closes off for good.
Your next decision
Make the invisible measurable.
Tell us what is inside, outside, and on the line. We will help you scope the capture and the handoff — in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut.