Commercial General Contractor in Beaverton, OR

Permitting for a Beaverton commercial project

Where your project sits decides which office reviews it, and that changes your timeline. Inside Beaverton city limits, your building, plumbing, mechanical, and electrical permits go through the City of Beaverton Building Division, part of Community and Economic Development. For commercial work they run the plan review across several departments at once, checking building code, structural, fire, energy code, and ADA, and each round of correction comments adds another review cycle.

If your site is in unincorporated Washington County, it runs through Washington County Building Services instead, submitted through the county's online permitting portal under the Oregon Building Code and the county Community Development Code. Nearby cities like Tigard and Hillsboro run their own departments.

We figure out which office pulls your permit before we start, handle the plan review, the permit, and the inspections, and build your schedule around the review timeline so it does not catch you off guard. If you are not sure which jurisdiction your address falls under, sorting that out is one of the first things we do.

Two jurisdictions, two portals

This is the part that catches Beaverton owners out, and it is worth understanding before you sign anything. The City of Beaverton takes commercial applications through its own Beaverton Electronic Permitting System, where you apply, track the application, pay fees, and request inspections. Washington County runs a completely separate system: applications go through the county's Building and Development Application Services portal, and every plan review submittal, structural, grading, fire alarm, fire sprinkler, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, equipment, and any deferred submittals, goes through Electronic Plan Review and ProjectDox.

Two systems, two sets of accounts, two queues. Getting this wrong at the start does not just cost you a form, it costs you the position in line. That is why sorting out the jurisdiction is the first thing we do, not something we discover halfway through.

Why the map matters more here than in the city

Beaverton is not a solid block on a map. City limits and unincorporated Washington County are interleaved, and there are unincorporated pockets sitting directly across the street from addresses that are inside the city. Cedar Hills and Cedar Mill are the obvious examples. Two buildings that look identical, on the same road, can answer to two different building departments with two different review timelines. A mailing address that says Beaverton does not by itself tell you which one you are in, so we confirm the parcel, not the address.

One thing that does not change across the line

The permit office changes. The code does not. Commercial work anywhere in Oregon is built to the Oregon Structural Specialty Code, adopted statewide by the Oregon Building Codes Division, so a city permit and a county permit hold your project to the same standard even though they travel different routes to get there. The 2025 edition is based on the 2024 International Building Code, International Fire Code, and International Existing Building Code, with construction provisions mandatory as of April 1, 2026.

Jurisdiction lines are not always obvious, and there are unincorporated pockets right next to city limits, so we confirm the exact office for your parcel before we start. Jurisdiction and code facts on this page verified July 2026.

Why Beaverton businesses choose Modern Northwest

• Licensed in Oregon. Oregon CCB #198582, licensed, bonded, and insured, so your Beaverton project is fully covered and permitted right.
• Portland-metro local. We build across the metro and know the City of Beaverton and Washington County building departments.
• Commercial construction is our focus. Tenant improvements, ground-up, medical and dental, retail, restaurants, and industrial, since 2008.
• One point of contact. A single project manager runs your job, on schedule and on budget, with honest updates.

Frequently asked questions