How Ware Malcomb uses TestFit as a marketing tool

• $200k-$300k saved in non-billable hrs
• 83% faster site planning time
• Wins developer partners at low cost

Ware Malcomb's business development team routinely runs site feasibility studies to win multi-family developer clients, work that has to happen before a project is ever signed and therefore doesn't get billed. As the firm's multi-family practice grew alongside its traditional industrial, office, and healthcare work, the volume of sites the team needed to vet for prospective clients made this non-billable process a growing drag on time and cost.

Ware Malcomb initially explored building its own Dynamo scripts inside Revit to speed up site planning, but found TestFit's dedicated site-planning platform offered more power out of the box. Running side-by-side case studies comparing manual planning against TestFit, the team found TestFit cut planning time to about a third of the traditional approach. "It helps us lessen the amount of hours on marketing opportunities to win projects when we're not getting paid," said Grant Brandenburg, Director of Regional Operations at Ware Malcomb.

Ware Malcomb's biggest challenge was that site feasibility work for prospective developer clients had to happen before a project was ever signed, so every hour spent testing a site's building footprint, unit yield, and amenity space was a cost to the firm rather than billable client work. As its multi-family business development pipeline grew, that non-billable overhead started to compete directly with the firm's traditional industrial, office, and healthcare workload for staff time.

Manually iterating through site options, or scripting workarounds in Dynamo, also made it harder to move quickly when a developer needed a same-day or next-day answer on whether a site could support their program. Without a purpose-built site-planning tool, the team had limited ability to compare multiple design options side by side or produce polished 3D massing quickly enough to make a strong marketing impression.

Before adopting TestFit, Ware Malcomb's team ran site feasibility studies by hand or explored building custom Dynamo scripts inside Revit to speed up the process. Site planning for prospective multi-family developer clients meant manually testing building footprints, unit counts, and amenity layouts against zoning and site constraints, work that had to be redone for every site under consideration. Because this vetting happened before a project was signed, none of the hours were billable, and the firm's homegrown Dynamo approach still fell well short of a dedicated site-planning tool, leaving planners to iterate through options largely by hand.

Adopting TestFit cut Ware Malcomb's site planning time to roughly a third of what manual methods took, and for podium designs specifically, site planning that once took about three days now takes half a day. Across the firm, that speed translated into $200,000 to $300,000 in non-billable hours saved within the first year of using the tool, freeing up staff time that would otherwise be spent on unpaid marketing pursuits.

The volume of sites Ware Malcomb vets for prospective clients has grown substantially, and Grant Brandenburg, Director of Regional Operations, said that volume "would be a much bigger sunken cost" under the firm's old process, "whereas now we can do this at very little cost." He added that TestFit "has allowed us to win over developer partners while saving over $200k in labor hours." Designer Christina D'Anza said her favorite part of TestFit is its speed and 3D capability, noting it's helpful to see the 3D massing in context, which lets the team hand developers a persuasive, visual pitch rather than a flat plan.

Ware Malcomb was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Irvine, California, with roughly 950 employees across 28 offices in North America and South America. The firm offers architecture, planning, interior design, civil engineering, branding, and building measurement services, and has traditionally focused on industrial, office, and healthcare projects while diversifying into multi-family housing over the past decade.

Within TestFit, the team reviews multiple design options and calculates building footprints, unit yields, corridor efficiency factors, and amenity space requirements before exporting files into SketchUp or Revit for polished client-ready renderings.