Retail shell spaces
A new tenant taking a cold shell, where the landlord delivers an open front or an old system that has to come out before the finish-out starts.
Storefront Window Installation in Austin for Opening Day
Austin Quality Windows delivers storefront window installation in Austin, TX as a trusted Travis County specialist, specializing in thermally broken aluminum framing, tall display lites and entrance doors with panic hardware. We offer laminated security panes and anodized or painted frame finishes.
- Free in-home measure
- Elevations you approve
- Installed to manufacturer instructions
- One written price
About our storefront window installation
Our team provides finish-out sequencing for new tenants, delivering a facade that sells from the sidewalk and doors that open on schedule for both residential and commercial projects. Our own crew measures each bay of the shell, draws the elevations your architect and landlord approve, and we install the framing to the manufacturer's written instructions before the tenant's flooring and fixtures go in.
From the threshold at a new entrance door to a full ground-floor bay of display panes, our team handles every detail. Serving Austin, Sunset Valley and West Lake Hills, we fit our work into the build-out so a shop or restaurant opens on the date in its lease.
Why Austin Quality Windows
How We Work
No handoffs between a salesperson, a measurer and a subcontracted crew. The crew that measures your openings installs the windows.
Measured on siteEvery opening measured in the wall it sits in, by the crew that will install it
Elevations firstYou approve the drawings, sizes, glass and finish before anything is ordered
Flashed to specSill pans, flashing and sealant to the manufacturer's written instructions
Water testedOpenings checked for leaks before the interior trim goes back on
Storefront Window Installation for Retail and Restaurant Tenants
A storefront is the street-level face of a business, and its display windows are there to make a passerby stop. This page covers that ground floor: the framing, the glass and the entrance a tenant needs before opening. Multi-storey facades and glass that runs past a floor slab are a separate system with a separate bid.
Restaurants and cafes
Tall display glass toward the patio, a pair of entrance doors sized for the crowd at lunch, and framing that has to be closed in before the kitchen trades arrive.
Clinics and service suites
Medical, dental, salon and office tenants on a ground floor, where privacy glass and a secure entrance matter as much as what the window shows.
Landlord facade refresh
An owner re-fronting a strip center or a row of suites in one pass, so every bay matches before the next tenant signs.
What an Aluminum Storefront System Is Made Of
Modern storefront is a kit of extruded aluminum members set into a structural opening and glazed in place. Knowing the parts makes a bid easier to read and two bids easier to compare.
- Mullions are the vertical members between lites. They give the glass rigid support and carry wind load into the structure around the opening.
- Transoms are the horizontal members, separating the display glass from the panel or lite above a door and tying the bay together.
- The thermal break is a strip of low-conductivity material inside the frame that interrupts the path heat takes through the aluminum. On a west-facing Austin storefront it is the difference between a frame that radiates afternoon heat into the sales floor and one that does not.
- The finish is usually anodized or painted. Anodizing thickens the oxide layer on the aluminum for corrosion and wear resistance, and integral anodized colors run from pale gold through bronze to black.
One practical note for a landlord matching new bays to old ones: integral anodized color is hard to reproduce exactly from batch to batch, so a sample is approved before the order rather than after the first bay is up. Plate glass made the large-window storefront possible in the United States from the 1880s, and storefronts are often rebuilt even when the rest of a building stays original, which is worth knowing on an older Austin street front where the facade carries character the owner wants to keep.
Entrance Doors, Panic Hardware and Accessibility
The entrance is the part of a storefront every customer touches, and the part inspectors look at hardest. Where a finish-out's total cost reaches $50,000, the TDLR architectural barriers program requires the project to be registered and its documents reviewed by a Registered Accessibility Specialist before inspection.
Panic exit hardware
Under the International Building Code, assembly, education and some healthcare spaces need push bars on egress doors, based on the occupant count expected to leave through each door.
Dogging for business hours
A key can hold the bar retracted while the shop is open, so customers push anywhere on the door, and the latch returns at closing.
Pairs of doors
Vertical rods with top and bottom latches let double doors open with no center post, while a removable mullion trades fewer moving parts for a partly blocked opening.
Accessibility at the threshold
Door width, hardware and threshold are checked against the Texas Accessibility Standards, which still apply to a project too small for TDLR registration.
Safety Glass at the Sidewalk
Storefront glass sits at the height of people, carts, strollers and the occasional car door, so most of it ends up as safety glazing under the adopted code. Each lite is marked on the shop drawings as tempered or laminated before anything is ordered.
- Tempered glass is heat-treated for strength and breaks into small granular chunks rather than blades. It cannot be cut after tempering, which is why every lite is measured in the field first.
- Laminated glass bonds layers to a polymer interlayer, usually PVB. When it is struck it cracks in a spider web and stays in the frame, which makes it the choice for a jeweler, a pharmacy or any tenant worried about a smash-and-grab. It also cuts traffic noise and blocks most UV, which protects merchandise sitting in a sunny display.
- Wired glass, still found in the doors and sidelites of older storefronts, is weaker than plain glass despite how it looks, and the IBC effectively ended its use in 2006. We flag every piece of it at the survey.
Fitting the Glazing Into a Tenant Finish-Out Schedule
On a finish-out, the storefront is rarely the biggest trade but it is often the one that holds up the rest. Until the front is closed in, the space cannot be conditioned, secured or handed to the flooring and millwork crews. So the schedule starts with us.
We measure the shell opening as soon as it is clear, because shop drawings are built from field dimensions and a renovated front is never exactly what the old drawings show. The submittal package goes to the tenant's architect and, where the lease requires it, the landlord's design review: product data for the framing system, the glass makeup lite by lite, a finish sample, and shop drawings with elevations, door hardware and the perimeter seal. Approval of that package is what releases the framing and glass for fabrication.
- Demolition of the old front, and any temporary closure of the opening, is timed so the space is never left open overnight.
- Framing and glazing go in after the structural and rough trades at the front wall and before interior finishes, so nobody works around wet sealant.
- Door hardware is set and adjusted with the tenant's security and access control installer, then tested with the general contractor before inspection.
- Signage installers get the transom and fascia dimensions from our drawings, so channel letters and blade signs land where the elevation shows them.
The general contractor gets our dates in writing with the bid, tied to the approval of the submittals, so the opening date in the lease has a real sequence behind it.
What Drives the Cost of Storefront Window Installation
We do not publish storefront prices, because every bay, tenant and landlord standard is different. These are the variables that move a bid, each settled at the survey and on the drawings.
- Framing depth and type: thermally broken versus non-thermal aluminum, and how deep the profile has to be for the span and the wind load.
- The glass makeup: tempered or laminated, insulating units with a low-E coating, tint or privacy glass, and how many different lite types the front carries.
- Doors and hardware: single or pairs, panic hardware, closers, electronic touch bars tied into an access control system, and automatic operators.
- Finish: standard anodized, a custom color, or a match to the existing bays on the building.
- Size and count of bays: tall display lites need more handling, and a full re-front costs differently from one entrance.
- Existing conditions: removal of the old system, rusted steel at the head, a damaged sill or curb, and stucco, brick or stone repair around the opening.
- Schedule and hours: work after hours in an open strip center, or squeezed into a tight finish-out window.
- Code scope: safety glazing locations, egress hardware and accessibility work at the entrance.
The bid comes after the survey, itemized by bay and by door, with the framing system and glass makeup named so it can be compared line for line.
Request a Storefront Bid
Call with the address, the suite number, the tenant's opening date and any architect's drawings or landlord criteria you have. We measure the shell, walk it with the general contractor or property manager, and return elevations, a schedule and an itemized bid. Bids are requested by phone.
The process
From First Measure to Finished Openings
Four steps, and nothing is ordered until you have signed off on the drawings and the price.
Free in-home measure
We measure every opening, check the framing and the header, and talk through glass, frame material and how each window should operate.
Elevations and a written price
You get drawings of every unit for your approval and for any HOA or historic review, with one written price.
Ordered to your sizes
Units are ordered to the approved sizes and glass package, and checked against the drawings when they arrive.
Installed and water tested
Old units out, openings flashed, new units set, sealed and water tested, then trim and cleanup.
More of What We Install
Questions
Storefront Window Installation: Common Questions
Can you work from our architect's storefront elevations?
Yes. We field-measure the opening, prepare shop drawings and product data against the architect's elevations and the landlord's criteria, and build to the approved set without re-designing the front.
What drives the price of a storefront?
The framing system, the glass makeup, the doors and hardware, the finish, the number and size of bays, what has to come out first and when the work can happen. We price after measuring the shell, never from a photo.
How long from approval to a closed-in front?
It depends on the framing system, the finish and the glass, since each is fabricated to size once the submittals are approved. You get the date in writing with the bid, and the finish-out schedule is built around it.
Do our entrance doors need panic hardware?
It depends on the occupancy and the number of people expected to leave through each door under the adopted building code. Restaurants and other assembly spaces often do. We confirm it with your architect before the hardware is ordered.
Which storefront glass should be laminated?
Any lite where a break-in or a smash-and-grab is the worry, such as jewelry, electronics and pharmacy fronts, and wherever the tenant wants quieter space on a busy road. Locations the code lists for safety glazing are marked tempered or laminated on the drawings.
Can you match the storefront on the rest of the building?
Usually, on profile and finish. Anodized color varies between batches, so a finish sample is approved against the existing bays before anything is ordered.
Does the finish-out need TDLR registration?
It depends on the whole project's construction cost, not just the storefront. Above the TDLR threshold the project is registered and reviewed by a Registered Accessibility Specialist, and below it the entrance still has to meet the Texas Accessibility Standards.
Do you work in shopping centers outside Austin's city limits?
Yes, across Travis County. In unincorporated Travis County a commercial building needs a county building permit under the county fire code, and inside a city the work follows that city's adopted codes, so we check which applies at the survey.
Is there a warranty?
Yes, the installation carries a written warranty, and the framing, glass and hardware carry their manufacturers' own. The terms come in writing with the bid.
Free in-home measure
Talk to us about storefront window installation
Free in-home measure across Austin and the west side. We call you back to set a time.
Calls only, we do not receive text messages.