A lot of tenant improvement risk is set before design starts.

The lease gets signed first. The architect comes in later. The general contractor comes in later still. By then, key delivery dates, landlord approval rights, notice requirements, and turnover conditions may already be fixed. If the downstream agreements do not match those upstream obligations, the owner can lose control of schedule, approvals, and responsibility without anyone making an obvious mistake. That is the central point in Nelson Mullins’ recent Lexology article on aligning lease terms with AIA construction documents, and it is a point owners should take seriously.

I have seen this problem in live projects. The lease is treated as a real estate document. The architect agreement is treated as a design document. The construction contract is treated as a delivery document. Legally, those are separate agreements. Operationally, they are one system.

When they do not line up, the owner pays for the gap.

The lease is upstream. The risk is downstream.

The Lexology article focuses on five areas where this misalignment shows up most often: delay notice and force majeure, liquidated damages, substantial completion and delivery milestones, warranties and third-party rights, and the incorporation of lease exhibits into the construction contract. Its practical warning is simple. A contractor can meet the AIA contract and the owner can still end up in default under the lease.

That is not just a legal drafting issue. It is a business issue.

If the lease requires notice of delay in five to ten days, but the contractor has twenty-one days to submit a delay claim under the base AIA language, the owner may lose rights before the project team even realizes there is a notice problem. If the lease defines delivery more tightly than the construction contract defines substantial completion, the owner may think the job is done while the lease still says it is not. If the lease gives the tenant or landlord approval rights over parts of the work, but those review steps are not built into the architect’s scope or the GC’s schedule, the approval process becomes an unplanned delay event.

That is why owners should review these agreements together, not in sequence.

What the source article gets right

The strongest part of the Lexology article is that it treats these as “business-critical alignment points,” not abstract legal traps. It walks through specific AIA sections in A101 and A201 and shows how standard language can drift away from lease obligations if no one checks the full stack of documents together. It also recommends carrying lease milestone schedules, work letters, and other relevant exhibits directly into the contract documents so they are actually binding on the contractor.

That logic is consistent with how AIA frames the core documents. B101-2017 is the standard owner-architect agreement for building design and construction contract administration, and it divides the architect’s basic services into schematic design, design development, construction documents, procurement, and construction. If the owner expects the architect to support landlord approvals, milestone management, or delivery conditions that arise from the lease, those responsibilities need to be reflected in that agreement. They do not automatically appear just because the lease says they matter.

The same goes for substantial completion. The Lexology piece rightly points out that lease delivery conditions are often more specific than the AIA baseline. AIA’s G704 Certificate of Substantial Completion is a useful tool because it records the date of substantial completion, attaches the punch list, and allocates responsibilities such as maintenance, utilities, and insurance. But it is only useful if the contract definition of completion matches what the lease actually requires for turnover, fixturing, and rent commencement.

Where owners get hurt in practice

Owners usually do not get hurt because one clause is extreme. They get hurt because several normal clauses do not work together.

I have been brought into projects after the lease was already executed and found the same pattern more than once. The lease had hard timing expectations. The architect agreement did not clearly pick up the landlord submission workflow. The GC contract was then negotiated on a separate track with its own completion logic. None of those documents looked unusual on their own. Together, they created drag, confusion, and preventable negotiation later.

This is where procurement and owner-side advisory adds value. GOA has long argued that good procurement starts before design and well before contract signature. In older GOA posts, I made the same point from different angles: clear scope, schedule, contract terms, and bid form structure improve decision quality; work should not start without a negotiated agreement; and procurement timing matters because contract execution is a real phase, not an administrative afterthought.

The owner-side lesson is not that legal review is insufficient. It is that legal review alone does not solve execution misalignment.

Three owner-side decisions that should happen earlier

1. Decide what “completion” actually means

Do not assume substantial completion means the same thing in the lease, the architect agreement, and the GC contract. It often does not. GOA has written before about how important substantial completion is because it can trigger warranties, payment releases, risk transfer, and liquidated damages. That makes it too important to leave vague. The lease delivery condition, the contractor milestone, and the project turnover plan should all be tested against one another before award.

2. Push landlord approvals into the actual scopes and schedule

If landlord review, tenant sign-off, criteria manuals, or work-letter exhibits affect the work, they should not sit quietly in the lease file. They should appear in the architect’s deliverables, in the GC’s planning assumptions, and in the milestone schedule. Otherwise, the owner is relying on implied coordination. That is not a control strategy. It is a hope strategy.

3. Treat notice provisions as operational requirements

Notice periods sound legal, but in fast-moving projects they are really process requirements. The Lexology article highlights that leases often require much faster notice than the base AIA language for claims. If the project team does not know that, rights can be lost quietly. Owners should make sure notice triggers, addresses, and response times are translated into actual project administration procedures.

GOA’s perspective

This is exactly the kind of issue that falls between disciplines.

Counsel reviews enforceability. The architect focuses on design scope and administration. The contractor focuses on price, schedule, and risk transfer. Each perspective is necessary. None of them is enough by itself.

GOA’s role is different. We look at how the agreements function together from the owner side. We ask whether lease commitments have been carried through to the architect and contractor. We ask whether milestone logic is executable. We ask whether approval rights, warranty obligations, and delivery conditions are coordinated across the full contract stack.

That is not overlawyering a project. It is basic owner governance.

What to do differently

Bring owner-side procurement or advisory into the conversation during lease negotiation, not after.

Review the lease, architect agreement, and construction agreement as one linked commercial structure.

Carry lease exhibits, delivery conditions, and approval workflows into the downstream agreements where they belong.

Define substantial completion and turnover in a way that reflects the real business event, not just the form language.

And do not let contract execution become the point where the team discovers what the lease already required.

The earlier this alignment happens, the cheaper it is to fix.

Have you had a project where the lease, architect agreement, and GC contract were negotiated on separate tracks?
Where did the misalignment show up first?
What controls have helped your team catch these issues before award?

Tell me your stories.