Permit Place

Permit Place is a permit expediting and entitlement firm working on commercial projects, with a stated specialisation in retail and restaurant brands opening multiple locations. It manages permits end to end, from due diligence through application preparation, submittal, reviewer coordination and approvals to certificate of occupancy.

Work usually begins with a due diligence report. Three types are sold: real estate due diligence before a location is committed to, permitting due diligence covering costs, timeframes and likely problems, and store-opening due diligence covering post-permit requirements. Service levels are published — due diligence in five days or less, comment responses in one day, quality control in 48 hours — and the firm says it offers credits when it misses an SLA and covers resubmittals caused by its own errors. Clients track everything in a project portal with colour-coded status tags, milestone schedules and a Gantt view, an activity timeline, document upload and a ticket queue.

Permit Place was founded in 2003. It says it has obtained more than 30,000 permits across over 2,000 jurisdictions for more than 2,500 clients, and publishes named case studies with the client, the jurisdiction, first-pass approval results and days saved. Project types include retail and restaurant buildouts, malls and shopping centres, EV charging stations, and solar and storage, and it also files liquor licence applications and sells AI-assisted permit research for individual cities.

Fees are quoted per project rather than published. Ask which jurisdictions the firm already has a current playbook for, and get the SLA terms — including what counts as a missed SLA — in writing before a multi-site rollout starts.