The Virginian-Pilot
Preservation and Conversion of the historic 175,000 square foot Virginian-Pilot offices building into 169 dwelling units with amenities.
adaptive reuse · multifamily · mixed-use
Let’s make plans.™Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering. Permit drawings, stamped.
You need stamped MEP drawings. Most firms don’t want your project. We do.
Every commercial space in America has to get through permits and inspections. Restaurants, bars, office suites, churches, all of them.
They all need drawings, and for most projects those drawings need a licensed engineer’s stamp. We have it.
To engineering firms, projects like yours are “small.” To you, they’re everything. Firms fight over big-budget work, where profit is easy; on yours, most of the built world, nobody is tooled to make money.
Everybody needs it. Almost no firm wants to provide it.
We took the market nobody wanted and built the system that scales it for your project.
The gate
Most permit sets have to be sealed by a licensed engineer, and that stamp carries personal and company liability.
It’s not a preference. Most of the time it’s the law, and only a human with a license can open that gate.
Your options today
The big firm takes it reluctantly, hoping your next project is bigger. Slow quote, bad price, and their best engineers are already spoken for.
The solo practitioner is often excellent. They just can’t scale: one person deep and booked for six weeks.
The up-and-comer loves your project at first, but it’s a stepping stone. When bigger work lands, you’re old news.
Those are your options today. That’s what we’re fixing.
We’re not any of them. We’re here on purpose, and we’re staying.
The big firm has the horsepower but not the interest. The small shop has the interest but not the horsepower. We’re the blend of both, and we want your project.
This isn’t another piece of software. It’s an operating model.
Anyone can buy the software. Almost nobody can run this while carrying professional liability and a PE stamp.
MEP firms can’t copy the system. Software companies can’t carry the stamp.
Clients don’t want fancier calcs. They want a real quote in seconds, and answers during construction in hours, not weeks.
We call it real-time engineering.
Two weeks, or it’s free.
Qualifying projects get stamped MEP drawings in two weeks, or the engineering is free. That’s how confident we are in the system.
Behind it
The chaos around every project: emails, meetings, RFIs, submittals, change orders. One system keeps it all linked, and moving, nearly around the clock.
What’s left for the engineer is judgment, delivered in minutes.
The platform keeps every answer linked to its evidence: the email, the walkthrough, the cut sheet, the invoice.
The RFI, a true story from every job site
Site superintendent
Two weeks I’ve been waiting. Framing’s up, sheetrock’s next.
General contractor
The engineers take two weeks to answer a stupid question, and their drawings were wrong in the first place.
Project manager
My plumber’s about to walk off site.
Every contractor, on every delayed job
1days waiting on a two-sentence answer
The bank
Reminder: construction loan interest due this week: $14,200.
The landlord
Heads up: first month’s rent starts next month, open or not.
The honest answer is slow for a reason: the engineer who signs it owns it. Re-read the drawings, the submittals, every email; a day of that silence costs tens of thousands on an active site.
Construction wants the answer now, and in writing. Not because it’s right: the job has to move, and blame needs an address.
PermitZIP closed that gap. Ten years in this market, never leaving it, building the systems that answer with quality, fast. Book the hour, leave with an endorsed answer. Real-time engineering.
We didn’t build this last weekend after a YouTube video about AI.
10 years
Building our own international production studio: our people, our standards, working while America sleeps.
2021
In-house dev department. The AI operating layer is built internally, not bought.
Along the way
We took our punches: bad handoffs, QC failures, a pandemic. Each one survived, fixed, and folded into the system.
We’ve paid that tuition, so you don’t have to.
One project, two timelines
PermitZIP
Quote in seconds, self-served
Call within 24 hours, deposit paid
Production with transparent milestones
Stamped drawings in about four weeks
A traditional firm
Still hasn’t returned the quote.
Not theoretical. We use it every day.
A national network of small, locally led MEP firms: two engineers, production support, and AI, on one shared infrastructure.
Growing organically, or acquiring as owners retire.
Run your own PermitZIP office
Are you a licensed PE in mechanical or electrical who wants to run your own PermitZIP office? We bring the systems and the infrastructure. You do what you love best: engineering, not paperwork.
Reach outReal-time engineering for the projects that are most of the built world.
Real prices, self-served, out in the open. No phone call required.
Let’s make plans.™
What people are saying
Clients who came back.
“When the going got tough, PZ stuck by us to make sure our plans were approved. We would retain PZ again in a heartbeat and highly recommend them.”
Richard Romero
Seichou Karate · collaborating since 2024
“The PermitZIP team is efficient, thorough, and fair. They bring value to the table every time.”
Stephen Pincus
CL Pincus Construction · collaborating since 2023
“The PermitZIP team is very responsive and knowledgeable in the MEP design process and throughout the construction period. Cannot recommend them enough!”
Adam Tiller
Dodson Development · collaborating since 2021
Are we a good fit?
Hyper-focused on the small-projects market.
8 in 10
More than 8 in 10 commercial buildings in America are 20,000 square feet or smaller.
Most of the built world really is projects like yours. That’s our whole market.
Source: US EIA, Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey, 2018
What we do
- Light commercial and industrial
- Multifamily and mixed-use
- Office & retail
- Restaurants, bars, breweries
- Warehouse and storage
- Tenant fit-outs and adaptive reuse
What we’ll refer to friends
- Critical care facilities
- Government projects
- Mission critical
- Heavy industrial
- Permit expediting
- Architecture, structural, or civil
Need your plans in two weeks?
We’ll send your stamped MEP drawings in two weeks, or it’s free. Contact team@permitzip.com to find out if your project qualifies.
