Shop fit outs, shopfitting and shop refurbishment for Oxford's retailers and landlords, planned back from the opening date.
Retail
The Lynch Brother Group is a retail fit out contractor for Oxford and Oxfordshire. We fit out new units and refurbish trading stores under fit out and refurbishment, to your designer's drawings. When a retailer leaves, we put the unit back to the condition the lease requires. We work for independent retailers, national brands and their landlords, in the city centre, its shopping centres and the retail parks around it. Tell us the opening date; the rest follows from it.
A unit taken from the shell (the bare unit the landlord hands over, its services capped at the boundary) to a trading store under fit out and refurbishment. We build the floors, ceilings, partitions and back of house to your designer's drawings and put in the lighting, power and data the layout needs. The bespoke joinery, the shopfront and the signage come from your specialist suppliers, booked into our programme.
A trading store renewed without losing the trade under fit out and refurbishment. We phase the work zone by zone behind hoardings (the temporary walls that close our work off from the sales floor), or take the store for a short closure and work it in long shifts. You set the reopening date; we build to it.
The structural opening for a new shop front formed and the fabric round it made good, the front itself made and fitted by your shopfront supplier on our programme, and the facade repaired and redecorated by our own decorators. Where the frontage is on a listed building, the new front needs listed building consent from the council before we start; see heritage and listed building.
Stockrooms, staff rooms and staff kitchens, washrooms and plant rooms: the rooms the customer never sees and the store cannot trade without, fitted out on the same programme as the sales floor, with the screed by our own screed teams wherever a new floor goes down.
When a retailer leaves, we strip out the fit out, repair the fabric and redecorate to the schedule of dilapidations, so the keys go back on the lease date, or the unit is ready to let again.
Redecoration out of hours by our own decorators, and the repairs and planned works a store needs under planned maintenance, booked into the quiet hours the store gives us.
New retail units and the shell of a parade or a retail park unit, built for the developer or the landlord under main contracting and new build construction, with the groundworks, masonry, screed and decoration by the group's own teams.
A shop earns nothing while it is shut, so the programme is written round the till. A refurbishment is phased behind hoardings with the store trading in front, or the store closes for a few days and we work it in long shifts. The neighbours are trading too, so the service yard, the deliveries and the skip are agreed with them.
Every unit comes with rules. The landlord gives its consent in a licence to alter (its written permission for your works) and sends a surveyor to check them. A shopping centre adds its fit-out guide, its management team, its service yard slots and its hours for noisy work. We read them before we price the job, and the site team keeps to them from the first delivery to the last.
A retail opening is fixed before the contractor is: the launch is booked, the stock is ordered and the staff are hired. We plan the job back from it. Structure, screed and decoration are done by the group's own teams, so when a joinery delivery slips we re-sequence our own people and the date stays. The store is cleaned, tested and signed off before the merchandisers walk in.
A retail job starts in one of three ways. A retailer has signed for a unit, has an opening date and needs a shop fit out to its designer's drawings. A trading store needs a refit and cannot close for long, so the job is phased behind hoardings or worked through a short closure. Or a landlord has a unit coming back and wants it let again: the last tenant's works stripped out and the unit returned to a lettable shell.
Whatever brings the job in, one site team runs it to one programme. Structure, screed and decoration are our own trades, and so is the strip out. The joinery, the shopfront, the signage and the retailer's own tills come from their suppliers; our site team fixes the week each arrives. The power, data and ventilation are tested before the doors open.
Oxford adds conditions of its own. The pedestrianised streets take deliveries in a window before the shops open, the main streets are lined with listed frontages, the shopping centres have their own management and service yards, and the retail parks sit on the ring road.
Opening day is not the end of it. Under planned maintenance the store's repairs and repaints are booked into its quiet hours between refits, and when the lease ends the dilapidations works return the unit to the schedule. The method behind a fit out is on our fit out and refurbishment page.
Science & Laboratories
Lab fit out and refurbishment
Workspace & Offices
Cat A, Cat B and full building refurbishment
Retail
Shopfitting and fit outs that open on time
Hospitality
Refurbishments designed around trading hours
Education
Schools and colleges; summer works a speciality
Student Accommodation
Build and refurb, timed to the academic year
Residential Development
Multi-plot schemes, groundworks to handover
Heritage & Listed
Conservation-grade work on period buildings
How a shop fit out runs
Every unit is priced from its own survey. Ask us for yours.
Main Contracting
Main contractor and design and build partner
New Build Construction
Offices, labs, education and residential development
Fit Out & Refurbishment
Cat A, Cat B and full refurbishment
Dilapidations
Strip out, repairs and making good, for tenants and landlords
Retrofit & Decarbonisation
External wall insulation, render systems and energy upgrades
Screed, Render & Insulation
Liquid screed, spray rendering and external wall insulation
Decorating & Finishes
High-end decorating and tiling — the final finish
Property Management & Maintenance
Planned maintenance for landlords and businesses
From the site office
Shopfitting is the work that turns a unit into a trading shop. The building work is the floors, ceilings and partitions, the back-of-house rooms, the lighting, the power and data for the tills, and the decoration. The specialist packages are the joinery, the shopfront and the signage that carry the brand. We build the first to your designer's drawings and fix the second into our programme, so the shop opens on one date.
A shop fitting company makes and fits the joinery a store is known by: counters, display units and fitting rooms. Some retailers appoint one to run the whole unit. A retail fit out contractor takes on the unit itself: strip out, structure, floors, ceilings, services, decoration and the programme. We are the second. The shopfitting joinery is a specialist package, made and fitted by your supplier on our programme, so one programme carries both to one date.
Yes. We phase the work zone by zone behind hoardings, with the store trading in front of them and the noisy and dusty work after closing. The fire exits, the alarm and the tills' power and data stay live, and any shutdown is booked with you and the centre first. If a short closure would cost you less than the phasing, we say so, and we work the closure in long shifts to the reopening date you set.
We price a shop fit out from your designer's drawings and a survey of the unit. The unit's size, the state of the shell, the power and ventilation it needs, the sales-floor finishes and the hours the centre or the street allows us set the price of the building work. The joinery, shopfront and sign packages are priced by their suppliers. Night shifts cost more than day shifts. Our cost guide explains what a per-square-foot rate covers.
Not with our own trades. We form the opening and make good the fabric round it. A shopfront specialist makes and fits the front, and a sign company fits the signage; our site team books both into the programme and has the store ready for them. On a listed building the front needs listed building consent, and the sign needs advertisement consent, before either goes in. The retailer or its designer applies; we build to what the council approves.
A shop fit out builds a store in an empty unit: the landlord hands over a shell and the retailer's works turn it into a trading shop. A shop refurbishment, or refit, renews a store that is already trading: new finishes, new lighting, a new layout or a new front, phased so the shop keeps selling. When a retailer takes a unit another brand has left, the strip out, the repairs and the new fit out run as one job.
Something else on your mind? Ask us directly.
Planning something serious — commercial, residential or a property portfolio that needs looking after? Send the outline and we'll take it from there.
