a commercial floor plan will show

Commercial Floor Plans

Learn how to create stunning 2D and 3D commercial floor plans in minutes.

Create commercial layouts in 50% of the time

Save floor plans to create multiple office layouts

Choose from thousand of commercial products in our 3D library

Draw Commercial Plans in Minutes

Commercial floor plan software can shorten the timeline for commercial building plan development from days to minutes. With simple, agile, cloud-based software, you can create detailed 2D floor plans and 3D renderings in less than two hours.

Draw 2D Commercial Floor Plans

A 2D commercial floor plan begins to tell the story of how you’ll fulfill the client’s expectations. A flat representation of the plan, the 2D visualization’s strength is in its ability to show exact measurements of interior walls and spaces. However, the story the 2D floor plan presents is incomplete, which is why you need a 3D visual alongside it.

Visualize Commercial Floor Plans in 3D

3D floor plans enhance the story you’re hoping to communicate. With furniture, decor, windows, and doors, a 3D floor plan shows the client see how your whole concept will come together.

Generate Photorealistic Renderings

Elevate your 3D commercial floor plan to the next level by generating photorealistic 3D renderings that allow you to take clients on a guided tour of the commercial space. An on-the-ground, virtual view of the space or building is the exciting wrap-up to the story you’ve been building for your clients.

6 Commercial Floor Plan Considerations

When you are creating a commercial building floor plan, you want to offer the client a layout so enticing that they simply cannot say no. Understandably, your creative energy is spent on the overall shape of the building and its rooms. But don’t forget these essential commercial floor plan considerations as you design your next project.

Ensure Sufficient Space

In offices and other commercial spaces, having sufficient space is key to productivity and everyday usability. Plan extra spaces for bulky office items like commercial printers and servers, and ensure that building users can easily navigate from workspaces to break rooms and boardrooms to bathrooms.

Utilize Multi-purpose Space

Think about the types of businesses that might want to use this commercial space. Would multipurpose rooms and spaces work well for them? Combining areas to create multipurpose space in your commercial building plan can cut down on wasted floor space and unnecessary interior walls and dividers.

Plan the Flow of Traffic

Planning the flow of traffic in commercial building blueprints goes beyond fire safety exits and office clusters. Consider how people working inside the building will move from area to area. Is the trek from the corner office to the conference room too long? Will your current plan have people crossing the open office area and creating unwanted noise and distractions for workers?

Factor in Outdoor Spaces

Commercial spaces often can include anything from retail to office to dining spaces, all of which benefit from outdoor space. These can include dining areas, sitting areas, gardens, and water features. These can all be added using intuitive floor plan software.

Consider Lighting Needs

Picture the lighting inside the building throughout the workday. Plan sufficient windows to let in as much natural light as possible, but remember that workers need to be able to see on cloudy days and at night. And if going green is a priority for your commercial building floor plan, pay attention to which light fixtures you choose.

Add Plenty of Outlets

Day-to-day operations require the use of the internet and a variety of electronic devices. Make sure your floor plan reflects that. How many computers, printers, phone chargers, and copiers will need to be plugged in — and where? A good rule of thumb is to add more outlets than you think is truly necessary.

Commercial Floor Plan Examples

With the right commercial floor plan software, creating a head-turning commercial space doesn’t have to take weeks or months. In just a few minutes, you can generate 2D, 3D, and photorealistic tourable floor plans that put your ideas and skills into focus.

Small commercial building plans

Isometric 3D commercial floor plan

Retail building floor plans

Industrial floor plan

Real estate office layout

Colored commercial floor plan

Office space layout with cubicles

Commercial lobby rendering

Commercial Floor Plan FAQs

Here are some common questions about floor plans answered. If you have more questions, contact us to reach one of our experienced customer success specialists.

What does a commercial floor plan show?

A commercial floor plan should include, exterior and interior walls, wall openings such as windows and doors, circulation and structural elements, fixture locations, and dimensions.

Which flooring is best for commercial spaces?

It’s best to look at how much impact your surfaces will receive. Polished concrete and epoxy-coated surfaces tend to be the most used because they can withstand the most impact. Cedreo’s library has hundreds of flooring options to choose from.

Can I create commercial floor plans for free?

Cedreo has a free offer with limited features and limited library access, but it’s perfect to give the software a try before upgrading to a personal or PRO offer.

Can I calculate accurate dimensions and areas?

Yes! With Cedreo you can enter all of your dimensions easily and the surface area calculator will show you every area needed from the entire home to individual rooms.

Create 2D & 3D Commercial Floor Plans Online…in Minutes

Creating an Ideal Commercial Floor Plan

Home » Blog » Creating an Ideal Commercial Floor Plan

The floor plan of a commercial space is vital for its design and functionality. A well-designed floor plan can enhance space efficiency, traffic flow, accessibility, and overall ambience. This summary will cover creating an ideal commercial floor plan, from assessing your requirements to working with experts. These tips can help you craft a floor plan that caters to the specific needs of your commercial space and ensures a great experience for customers and employees.

Determine Your Needs

The first step in designing the ideal floor plan for your commercial space is determining your needs. Think about how many people are using the space at any given moment, including customers, employees, and guests. Make a basic drawing or layout of the space after measuring its measurements. Make sure to leave enough room for each location while avoiding a cramped or packed layout overall. Take into account any zoning or building code requirements that can have an impact on the space’s architecture or design.

Consider Traffic Flow

Following the determination of your requirements, the next stage is to take the commercial space’s traffic flow into account. To achieve this, it is necessary to comprehend local traffic patterns and maintain a smooth flow of traffic. Determine any potential obstructions to traffic flow, such as congestion or bottlenecks. Identify the main points of entry and departure for the commercial area.

Take into account where windows, doors, and other openings that might impact traffic flow are situated. Make sure that exhibits, equipment, and furniture are not in the way of traffic flow by carefully considering their placement.

Optimize Space Efficiency

The next stage is to maximize space efficiency in the business space after taking traffic flow into account. This includes measuring how much space is being used, selecting furniture, and maximizing storage. Make space allocations based on which functional areas are used the most. To make the best use of the available space, take into account multi-purpose rooms that may be used for many purposes. 

Choose transportable or modular furniture that can be quickly adjusted to meet changing requirements. Select shelving, cabinets, or drawers as the best storage options for the objects that require storage. Utilize organized solutions like bins, baskets, or dividers to make the most of your storage space.

Ensure Aesthetics

In addition, aesthetics play an important role in creating the perfect floor plan for your commercial space. This involves designing a visually appealing space that reflects your brand, enhances the customer experience, and creates a positive impression. Choose a design aesthetic that reflects your brand identity and values.

 Incorporate brand elements such as colors, logos, and typography into the design. Use lighting, colors, and textures to create a welcoming and inviting atmosphere. Ensure that the space is well-maintained, clean, and organized.

Collaboration with Professionals

Working with experts to design the ideal floor plan for your business space is essential. To make sure that your vision is realized and that the space fulfills your needs and exceeds your expectations, you will need to collaborate with architects, interior designers, and other experts. Create a floor plan that is practical, effective, and visually beautiful in collaboration with the architect.

 Make sure the experts are fully aware of your company’s activities and space needs. Make sure the designer fully comprehends your functional needs and specifications. Maintain open lines of communication with all professionals to make sure the project is moving forward and that any concerns are dealt with right away.

Multi-Purpose Spaces

When creating the floor plan for your commercial business whether or not multipurpose rooms or sections are appropriate for your particular commercial enterprise. The layout of a business building It’s important to carefully assess the space you have available and the locations your firm demands. If you own a business that sells various types of fruit and food, are you open to the idea of using one vast space for two assortments of products? When you find ways to eliminate the need for multiple distinct zones, the quantity of wasted floor space in your business building diminishes.

Eliminate Duplicate Spaces

As was previously stated, you must carefully analyze the area you have to work with and the areas you desire. Are all the rooms and spaces you want to include in your floor design truly necessary? If not, consider eliminating spaces that serve the same purpose.

For instance, having separate offices for all the departments is not necessary. Consider moving all the offices together to free up floor space for the customer service centres and product displays.

Consolidate

Consolidate whenever and whenever you can while creating your ideal floor plan for your office building, just as you would eliminate unused areas. Make sure that any areas that require plumbing are close to one another to prevent the requirement for several plumbing cores throughout your structure. If there are multiple plumbing cores, the cost of the building will significantly increase. Your restrooms will be less expensive to install if they are close to any other sites that need plumbing.

Lessen the need for large storage spaces

As a business, you will undoubtedly require storage space, especially in the tangible goods business. However, that does not mean you should overstuff the given area with storage locations. Consider creating a single storage space if you want to combine unnecessary duplicate spaces (there it is again). 

This will free up space in your floor plan for other, more crucial, and work-related components. To keep your storage space from getting too cluttered, only place orders when you have limited inventory. Thus, fewer backup products will be required.

Think about how your commercial business operates

When creating a floor plan for a commercial structure, it’s essential to consider the flow of people within the facility. Trace the floor plan to assess how individuals might move around. Too many walls can impede movement, so ensure there are clear pathways. Look for potential vistas and address any gaps in routes between departments.

Also, consider if the departments are adequately sized to accommodate goods and services and whether there’s enough storage space. A well-designed floor plan should promote smooth and efficient movement. 

Ensure that customer activities like picking up items, trying them on, and reaching the checkout line are convenient. Once you’re satisfied with the flow, move on to the production and erection phases of construction, turning your ideal floor plan into a reality for your commercial enterprise.

Several crucial phases are involved in designing the ideal floor plan for your commercial location. You may design a floor plan for a commercial facility that is practical, effective, aesthetically beautiful, and conveys your brand identity and values by following these steps.

Level X Construction can assist you if you’re prepared to design the ideal floor plan for your commercial area. Our group of qualified builders has the knowledge and skills to realize your idea from conception to completion.

 Make the first move toward designing a commercial space that fits your needs and exceeds your expectations by getting in touch with us right away to arrange a free consultation. Give us a call at 214-799-1565 or visit our website at www.levelxco.com .

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How to create the perfect floor plan for your commercial building.

Key Takeaways:

• Optimize Space Utilization : Effective commercial floor plan s prioritize eliminating redundant space s and consolidating essential areas, such as combining multiple storage or office space s into single, multifunctional areas.
• Enhance Operational Efficiency : Strategic floor plan ning ensures seamless flow between different business areas, facilitating smooth customer movement and improving overall functionality and access within the commercial space .
• Plan for Flexibility : Incorporating multi-purpose and adaptable spaces in floor plan s allows for future business expansions and changes, ensuring the commercial building remains functional and efficient as business needs evolve.

A smart  floor plan is crucial for designing and constructing high-quality commercial building s. 

An efficient floor plan enhances commercial space usage and ensures a seamless flow between space s, increasing overall operational efficiency. 

When planning your next commercial property , it is vital to consider factors like office space optimization, multi-purpose space s, and future expansion . 

In this blog, we explore vital aspects that will help you create the perfect floor plan for your commercial building project, aiming for both functionality and aesthetic appeal.

Table Of Contents

Consider Multi-Purpose Spaces

• Get Rid of Redundant Spaces

Consolidate

• Reduce the Need for a Lot of Storage Area

Consider the Flow of Your Commercial Business

One of the initial considerations in the design proces s of your commercial building floor plan should be the integration of multi-purpose space s, particularly if your business model benefits from versatile environments. 

Whether you're planning a retail space , an office, or a storage area, the ability to adapt your floor plan to accommodate different functions is crucial for maximizing efficiency and minimizing redundant space s.

For instance, if you operate a commercial busines s selling a variety of products, such as food and produce, could one expansive area serve dual purposes? 

Utilizing one large space for multiple product assortments not only reduces the need for numerous separate space s but also optimizes floor space . 

This strategy is particularly beneficial in commercial properties where every square foot counts, allowing for an efficient floor plan that supports a smooth flow between space s.

Moreover, designing flexible spaces that can transition from commercial to private uses or from retail to office areas saves space and prepares your commercial building for future expansion s or adaptations without significant renovations. 

A smart floor plan enhances the functionality of the building, ensuring that all areas serve more than one purpose effectively.

Get Rid Of Redundant Spaces

When optimizing your commercial building floor plan , scrutinize every square foot to eliminate redundant or duplicate space s that don't add value to your business operation s. 

Assess whether each designated area serves a unique purpose or if some could be consolidated to enhance efficiency and flow between space s.

For instance, consider creating a unified office space instead of having separate offices for different departments. 

This approach saves valuable floor space and fosters better communication and collaboration among staff. 

By merging similar function areas, you can free up space for more critical uses like product displays or customer service centers, directly contributing to the client experience and potential customer engagement.

Furthermore, reducing unnecessary partitions and combining like spaces can create a more open, airy environment, making your commercial property feel bigger and more welcoming. 

This smart floor plan adjustment optimizes the functional floor space and aligns with modern design trends, prioritizing open layouts and multi-purpose areas.

By carefully planning and removing redundant space s, you ensure that every part of your commercial building is used to its full potential, supporting your business model and enhancing operational efficiency.

Consolidation is key in crafting the perfect floor plan for your commercial building . 

To maximize efficiency and reduce construction cost s, strategically locate all areas requiring plumbing close together. 

This approach minimizes the need for multiple plumbing cores, which can significantly drive up the expenses of commercial construction.

For instance, positioning bathrooms adjacent to other facilities like kitchenettes or cleaning closets in your commercial space s simplifies the plumbing design. 

It contributes to a more compact and efficient floor plan . 

This smart configuration reduces both the initial construction cost s and the long-term maintenance expenses, enhancing your commercial property 's overall cost-effectiveness.

By consolidating essential services and utilities, you create a more streamlined and functional layout and leverage the benefits of an efficient floor plan .

This ensures that every square foot of your commercial building serves a purpose and supports your business model .

Reduce the Need For A Lot Of Storage Area

While storage space s are essential for any commercial busines s selling physical products, overloading these areas with excess inventory is unnecessary. 

Streamlining your storage strategy by consolidating duplicate space s into one efficient area can free up valuable floor space for other critical business functions.

Consider designing a single, well-organized storage space that accommodates all your needs without becoming cluttered. 

This approach optimizes your commercial floor plan and enhances operational efficiency. 

Implement a just-in-time inventory system, ordering products only as your stock depletes. 

This method minimizes the need for extensive backup product storage, thereby reducing the square foot age dedicated to storage areas.

By smartly consolidating storage space s and managing inventory levels, you maximize the usable space in your commercial building .

This allows for better utilization of the property and improves the flow between various business areas.

When designing your commercial floor plan , it’s crucial to envision the flow of foot traffic throughout the facility. 

Assess the layout for potential obstructions—like excessive walls or disjointed paths—that could hinder the movement between different areas of your business. 

A seamless flow is vital for  creating an efficient floor plan  that enhances customer experience and operational functionality.

Ensure each department is adequately sized for its products or services and has enough storage space to support these functions. 

The ideal floor plan facilitates easy access to products, fitting rooms, demo areas, and quick transitions to checkout points, optimizing the customer journey within your commercial space .

Before proceeding, finalize a floor plan that promotes an effortless flow that is pleasing to both you and your customers. 

Once satisfied, this perfect floor plan will guide the subsequent phases of your commercial steel building ’s construction, from engineering to erection, ensuring a smooth execution of your vision.

Bring Your Perfect Floor Plan to Life With CDMG!

Now that you've learned how to design the perfect floor plan for your commercial building,  bring it to life and erect a custom-made steel structure with the help of CDMG !

We specialize in erecting tailor-made steel building kits for clients with businesses in all markets and industries. 

Partner with CDMG when you want a strong, durable steel building that will last.

Unsure of how to finance the construction costs of your building ? We can help with that. 

Call one of our sales representatives here , or click the button below to get started with your new commercial construction project! 

Original blog post published here.  

Topics: floor plan for commercial building

About The Author

A subsidiary of the STEVENS family of companies, CDMG offers full-service, multi-discipline engineering, project management, and construction management services for projects nationwide.

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Online Floor Plan Creator

Design a house or office floor plan quickly and easily, the easy choice for creating your floor plans online, easy to use.

You can start with one of the many built-in floor plan templates and drag and drop symbols. Create an outline with walls and add doors, windows, wall openings and corners. You can set the size of any shape or wall by simply typing into its dimension label. You can also simply type to set a specific angle between walls. SmartDraw also lets you see and adjust the exact distance between a corner of a room and a wall opening.

You can easily add fixtures, display dimensions, and measure distances and areas in your floor plan as you design.

Easy to Find the Symbols You Need

You'll get thousands of ready-made visuals for furniture, kitchen and bathroom fixtures, lighting fixtures, cabinets, office furniture, wiring, plumbing, HVAC, security systems, plants, landscape elements, and more! SmartDraw also includes many photo-realistic textures that can take your design to the next level.

Easy to Draw and Print to Scale

SmartDraw lets you draw to scale easily. Choose a common standard architectural scale, a metric scale, and more. You can print to scale just as easily. And your printed scale doesn't have to match your drawing's scale. You can easily change the scale at any time, even after you've started drawing.

Easy to Do More

Keep track of information like the author and settings used in a scale-independent annotation layer. Add layers for electrical, plumbing, or HVAC.

You can also add model numbers and other important manufacturing information to elements in your floor plan to display as a tooltip.

You can also export any data as a manifest. You can export the number of chairs of a certain model or get a list of equipment based on purchase date.

Easy to Work With Other Apps

SmartDraw is easy to work with no matter what other apps you use. You can add floor plans to:

• PowerPoint ®
• Excel ®
• Microsoft Teams ®
• Google Docs
• Google Sheets

Easy to Save to Your Existing Storage Solution

SmartDraw works hand in glove with most file storage systems. You can save your floor plan designs directly to:

• SharePoint ®
• OneDrive ®
• Google Drive ™
• DropBox ®

There is no need to create a parallel set of common folders and permissions, SmartDraw can just save files directly into your existing set up. You can spend less time managing software and more time on making floor plans.

Easy to Share

Share your floor plan or blueprint with anyone, even if they don't own a copy of SmartDraw, with a link.

Whether you're sharing using a link or a shared folder, you can control who can view or edit your files when it comes to sensitive designs.

You can also easily export any diagram as a PDF or common image formats like PNG or SVG.

Easy to Get Help

Have a question? Chat or email us. SmartDraw support is in-house and free!

Easy Collaboration

Get feedback on your new floor plan from your team or your clients.

You can work on the same floor plan by saving it in a shared folder or by sharing a link. Others can leave comments or make edits if they have permission.

SmartDraw also works where you already communicate with your team. You can collaborate on floor plans in Microsoft Teams ® , Slack or Confluence.

Use SmartDraw's floor plan designer to realize your vision and share the results.

Our Floor Plan Designer Features

• Professional floor plan templates
• Extensive floor plan symbol collection
• Built-in common scales
• Ability to define a custom scale
• Change scale at any time
• Ability to add layers for HVAC, and more
• Scale independent annotation layer
• Powerful shape data
• Export a manifest
• Collaboration and sharing
• Export as PDF, PNG, or SVG
• Works with Google Workspace ™
• Works with with Microsoft Office ®
• Works with Microsoft Teams ®
• App for Confluence ® and Jira ®
• Works with 3rd party storage providers

How to Make Your Floor Plan Online

Define the area to visualize.

Determine the area or building you want to design or document. If the building already exists, decide how much (a room, a floor, or the entire building) of it to draw. If the building does not yet exist, brainstorm designs based on the size and shape of the location on which to build.

Take Measurements

If the building exists, measure the walls, doors, and pertinent furniture so that the floor plan will be accurate. If the layout is being created for an entirely new area, be sure that the total area will fit where it is to be built.

Start with a Template

Choose a floor plan template that best fits your project. SmartDraw has basic floor plan templates for rooms, houses, offices, and more.

Create an outline by adding walls for each room of the building.

SmartDraw makes it easy to drag walls to adjust them or just type the length directly into walls to modify them. Once you've created an outline for your room or house, click on a wall and you'll see two types of growth handles appear. The handle with an up and down or right to left arrow will allow you to move your wall inward or outward vertically or horizontally. The handle at the corners where walls meet will help you adjust your wall diagonally by letting you move the placement of the corner.

Add Architectural Features

Begin adding features to the space by including the unchangeable things, like the doors and windows, as well as the refrigerator, dishwasher, dryer, and other important appliances that must be placed in a specific location.

Add Furniture

Add furniture like desks, equipment, chairs and so on.

Print or Share Your Floor Plan

Once your floor plan is built you can insert it directly to Microsoft Word ® , Excel ® , PowerPoint ® , Google Docs ™ , Google Sheets ™ , and more.

SmartDraw also has apps to integrate with Atlassian's Confluence and Jira. You can share your floor plan design in Microsoft Teams. You can also easily export your floor plan as a PDF or print it.

See Why SmartDraw is the Easiest Floor Plan Designer

SmartDraw's floor plan software is used by millions of users and over 85% of Fortune 500 companies. Why? Because it's easy to use and offers incredibly powerful scaled drawing features at a reasonable cost.

Designing floor plans doesn't have to be difficult. SmartDraw gives you powerful tools and a broad selection of templates and symbols that help jumpstart any project. You'll be able to adjust dimensions and angles by simply typing them in, drag and drop elements, easily add textures, and more.

Floor Plan Templates & Examples

SmartDraw comes with dozens of templates to help you create floor plans, house plans, office spaces, kitchens, bathrooms, decks, landscapes, facilities, and more.

What is a Floor Plan?

A floor plan is a scaled diagram of a residential or commercial space viewed from above. The scope of a floor plan may vary. You can create a drawing of an entire building, a single floor, or a single room. Your floor plan may be of an office layout, a warehouse or factory space, or a home. You can even create a floor plan of event space and conventions.

A typical floor plan will include measurements as well as furniture, appliances, equipment or anything else necessary to the purpose of the plan.

You can use floor plans for

• Interior design to layout a space
• Helping to sell or rent a space by real estate agents or leasing companies
• Designing a factory floor and keeping inventory of necessary equipment
• Layout of a retail space
• Designing the layout of a warehouse from self-storage to manufacturing
• Creating evacuation plans
• Space planning in your office to keep track of employees or equipment

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Floor Plan Software

You can certainly create your own floor plan without being a proffesional as long as you have the right tools and a bit of creative inspiration. Sketching out ideas yourself will help communicate your vision to the architect when you need to have a professional blueprint drawn up. Learn more how to make your own floor plan.

While many might call AutoCAD as the king of floor plan software, it may not be the ideal tool for everyone. There's no reason to shell out a ton of money for AutoCAD when a software like SmartDraw has almost all the same CAD power for a fraction of the cost. Learn more about our AutoCAD alternative.

SmartDraw works on any device with an internet connection. Once you're done, you can export your floor plan as a PDF, SVG, or add it to any Office ® application.

With SmartDraw, you can change the scale of any drawing at any time. You can flip between standard and metric scales at will. You can also define your own scale if it is not among the standard scales offered.

Using layers in SmartDraw allows you to group and separate items like electrical symbols or HVAC information so you can show and hide details or prevent editing of specific layers as needed. Learn more.

You can easily import photos to create texture or add more detail to any design. You can even import an image of an extisting floor plan if you want to draw over it in more detail or make notes to share with your team.

SmartDraw is Used by Over 85% of the Fortune 500

Try smartdraw's floor plan software free.

Discover why SmartDraw is the easiest floor plan creator.

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Eight types of construction drawings used in commercial construction

Apr 09, 2021

Blueprints, plans, drawings—in construction, these three terms all refer to the same thing. These are technical drawings created by architects, engineers, and designers to represent the vision for a construction project, and act as a roadmap for making it a reality.  Professional carpenter Elly Hart explains in her class on reading commercial blueprints , “Construction blueprints aren’t just drawings—they’re a contract that represents what’s going to be built, and it’s a critical form of communication that gets everybody involved on the same page. It’s the one shared goal for all the different trades on site.”

Commercial Blueprints

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8 Types of construction drawings 

There are 8 main types of construction drawings included in a set of commercial blueprints. The same types of drawings also appear in residential construction, but their scope and specific contents will differ. Elly Hart explains:

“On commercial projects, blueprints are typically separated by discipline. The architectural drawings are separate to the structural drawings, which are separate to the mechanical drawings, and so on. A complete set of IFCs will often contain hundreds and hundreds of sheets. There will often be multiple floors, multiple sets of stairs, multiple components that look the same but have important differences depending on their purpose and location, and they all need to be uniquely identifiable on the plans.”

Below is a detailed description of each type of construction drawing you’ll encounter in a set of commercial blueprints.

Site plans are a type of architectural drawing that functions as a map of a building site, giving you the details you need to know about how the structure will be oriented on the lot. An architect will create a diagram that shows the plot of land and its property lines, along with its landscape features, setbacks, driveways, utility poles and power lines, fencing, and on-site structures.

Floor Plans

A floor plan is a bird’s eye view of a building, giving you a detailed picture of the layout of each floor. It includes features such as walls, doors, windows, means of egress , and sometimes even furniture. 

Reflected Ceiling Plans (RCP)

The RCP is a print that shows you the dimensions, materials, and other key information about the ceiling of each of the rooms represented on your blueprint. It takes its name from the idea that you are looking down at the ceiling as though there were a mirror on the floor reflecting the ceiling’s plan back to you. 

While a floorplan gives a horizontal view of a floor in a building, sections give a vertical view. A sectional view shows the floor elevations, ceiling heights, and construction details such as fire separations. While a floor plan allows for a view of how the walls stand in relation to each other, a section shows where the wall meets the floor, and the distance that separates one floor from another. Sections also provide a better understanding of how a building’s spaces will accommodate its future occupants and whether, for example, the ceiling will feel like it looms or soars overhead. 

Structural Drawings

Engineers create structural drawings to show how the building will be framed, and how it will be given its structure. You’ll see a structural drawing for each floor of the building, including floors below grade such as parkades and storage. 

Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) Drawings

MEP drawings show the central nervous system of a building. Describing these functions, from ensuring its air quality to planning its electronic and communications systems, to laying out complex piping routes, is the responsibility of MEP engineers. 

• The mechanical plans show the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (or HVAC) systems of a building. 
• The electrical plans show how the electrical system will provide the power supply for lights and appliances, as well as access control and fire alarm systems. Electrical engineers design the routes for wiring so they can be safely and continuously operated. 
• Plumbing plans reflect the complex piping and sewage routes for the building, as well as heated water and rainwater collection and storage.

Schedules are drawings showing supplementary information, typically presented in tables, that go beyond the details that can be found on the floor plans. Window and door schedules provide the additional information that a contractor will need in order to install these items: the different types of windows and doors to be used in a building, their locations, and the hardware and finishes to be used with each of them. There are often separate hardware and finish schedules as well as fixtures and equipment schedules. 

Detail Drawings

Special details of a building are included in drawings whose features are magnified so that a builder can see how to construct these elements. Structural connections, stairs, means of egress, and wall junctions can all be included in supplemental detail drawings.

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Commercial Floor Plan Software

Easy-to-use commercial floor plan software.

Quickly design and produce any type of commercial floor plans with CAD Pro.

“Smart Tools” make designing commercial floor plans quick and simple, no experience needed.

Create professional and precise commercial floor plans for your commercial buildings , commercial office designs , commercial kitchens, commercial bathrooms and much more.

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Interactive Commercial Floor Plans

Now communicate and share  your commercial design ideas more effectively. Save any commercial floor plan or commercial drawing created in CAD Pro as a PDF file. Share your commercial drawings over the internet with CAD Pro’s “Send as Mail” feature.

CAD Pro is the only commercial floor plan software that allows you to:

• Record your ideas and incorporate voice instructions into your commercial floor plans.
• Add pop-up text memos to your commercial floor plans to support areas in precise detail.
• Add pop-up photos and transform commercial floor plans into designs you can visualize.

Cad Pro is great for commercial site plan designs.

Commercial Site Plans

Easy Commercial Facility Planning Software

Create facility plans, apartment building plans, site plans, store layouts, office plans, and much more.

CAD Pro precisely aligns objects while adding professional design themes for great results.

Facility Plans & Designs

Sketch Tracing

Sketch your commercial floor plan on a piece of paper, and then scan it. Now open your scanned sketch in CAD Pro and it becomes a traceable template that you can easily modify.

Smart Dimensions

When creating commercial floor plans or commercial blueprints that require precise dimensions, let CAD Pro take the work out of the process. CAD Pro’s “Smart Dimension” tools will automatically create all your commercial floor plan dimensions with a few simple clicks.

Commercial Floor Plan Photo Tracing Software

CAD Pro allows you to simply open any digital photo or image of your commercial floor plan or commercial building in a CAD Pro document. Now you can trace over them with CAD Pro’s easy-to-use design tools, therefore saving you time and money!

Easily create:

• Facility plans
• Building Plans
• Commercial Spaces
• Store Layouts
• Office Floor Plans
• Restaurant Plans
• Commercial Kitchens
• Commercial Bathrooms
• Commercial Interiors
• Commercial Symbols
• Commercial Restaurant Plans
• Commercial Bar Plans
• Commercial Club Plans
• Commercial Warehouse Plans
• and Much More!

Real Estate Floor Plan

Planner 5D offers a user-friendly platform ideal for professionals and amateurs to design captivating home interiors and create detailed real estate floor plans for commercial buildings. The process is streamlined into three simple steps: sketching out the layout, transforming it into a 3D model, and easily sharing it with just one click.

Crafting real estate floor plans may initially appear daunting, but with Planner 5D, the process becomes remarkably straightforward.

This innovative tool empowers you to swiftly generate comprehensive layouts with minimal effort. With the help og Planner 5D's intuitive interface, you can seamlessly design intricate floor plans that accurately capture the spatial dynamics of commercial and residential properties.

Whether conceptualizing office spaces, retail establishments, or residential dwellings, Planner 5D facilitates the creation of detailed floor plans tailored to diverse real estate needs.

An Easy Step-By-Step Process

With Planner 5D, designing real estate floor plans for diverse properties becomes a smooth and gratifying endeavor. Let's explore the precise step-by-step process that makes Planner 5D the best choice for real estate professionals and enthusiasts alike.

Use the building tools to draw walls and other essential architectural features. All the controls are extremely intuitive, so once you place your first element of the layout, you will quickly learn how it's done.

If you want to see more of your design and actually plan entire rooms in the building, you can rely on Planner 5D’s catalogue. Choose the furniture pieces you’d like to see in the commercial building and easily customize them if necessary.

The last step is exporting your real estate floor plan in 3D. You can do this in just a few clicks. You can also select some of the advanced renders to see what the building would look like in different times of the day.

Unleash your creativity with Planner 5D for real estate floor planning!

Dive into a world where designing your dream space is not only effortless but also exhilarating.

With its intuitive interface and vast library of décor options, Planner 5D lets you craft personalized layouts tailored to your unique vision.

The Right Tool To Create Floor Plan For Real Estate

There is a wide variety of similar online platforms. Perhaps you’re wondering why you should choose Planner 5D to design a real estate property.

We can list plenty of reasons, such as:

We’re proud to show off the projects that some of our users have created. You can find lots of ideas in our gallery before starting on your own apartment floor plan. You can search for houses that are similar to yours and draw inspiration from published layouts.

These examples will demonstrate to you how creative you can get with interior design. However, if you still want a helping hand, there are multiple templates you can choose from. With just a few clicks, you can modify it and share it with other users or even send it to your builders.

How Do You Build a Real Estate Plan?

Can i use real measurements, where can i get inspiration for floor plans, can i create a 3d plan for free, are the projects exportable, feeling inspired.

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3D Coffee Shop Design

We will help you master the skill of creating a coffee shop floor plan, even without any professional background.

Office Floor Plan Creator

With Planner 5D, you can create detailed office blueprints to make the working space as functional and thoughtful as possible.

Architecture Floor Plans

Get the inspiration for Architecture design with Planner 5D collection of creative solutions.

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Help Center

How to Create the Perfect Floor Plan for Your Commercial Space

Though it might not be as outwardly flashy an architectural design feature as others, floor plans play a critical role in the success of your build. They make sure workflow and customer logistics both go smoothly, as well as influence the vibe of your space from an interior perspective.

Floor plans are as individualized and personalized as the build itself, and finding one takes a lot of thought and tinkering on the architect’s part.

Miller Architects & Builders, your St. Cloud construction project management and architectural design company, describes how to create a floor plan that best facilitates your team and the customer experience!

Understand Privacy Versus Openness

Certain builds, like funeral parlors, may require more isolated spaces so as to better tend to customers, while retail-oriented builds may benefit from a more open approach. Understanding the roles that privacy and publicness play in your business’s industry or archetype is important to making the ideal floor plan, but so is a keen knowledge of your company’s individual working methods.

For instance, office construction runs the gamut when it comes to its prioritization of open space versus more private space. You’ll need to understand how your team works together to construct a floor plan that works for them.

Build for Expansion If Needed

It might be hard to picture where your company will be in, say, five years, given the current state of the world. But at the very least, knowing if expansion will be in your future can help design a floor plan to account for it.

We’ve all seen builds where additions are obvious or poorly placed, and these faux pas are more than just eyesores; They’re productivity-crushing blunders that ruin both the customer and employee experience.

Your build isn’t just for your business’s needs now. With luck and smart planning, it’ll be your central space for years and years to come.

Mind Redundancy

Efficient space usage is paramount in creating a build that works for your company. Every area on your architectural design’s floor plan must be marked with a clear purpose, and that purpose must not be redundant or inessential.

For instance, every business only needs so much storage space—expansion potential aside—before those spaces become better suited for other purposes, like serving customers.

Miller Architects & Builders: Commercial Construction With Customer Care in Mind

We’re more than a commercial contractor; we’re your partners in your business’s success. Reach our St. Cloud office now at 320-251-4109.

How to Create the Perfect Commercial Space Floor Plan

A commercial space floor plan should be designed to scale, detailing the relationship between rooms, spaces, furniture, and other physical features in aerial view..

For any commercial property, having a functional floor plan is critical. A practical floor plan increases the building’s efficiency through a seamless flow between spaces. If you’re looking to create a floor plan that best fits your business operations, here are some simple tips to assist in designing the best floor plan for your commercial property.

Consider designing a multipurpose space

When planning a floor plan for your commercial space, consider having multipurpose rooms for the commercial spaces to work. It is essential to understand the type of space to work with and the areas needed for the business. Eliminating the need for having separate spaces helps you cut down the wasted floor space in the commercial building. A space with multiple functionalities will save the spaces needed for future expansion, like building bathrooms or offices.

Get rid of redundant spaces

Another way to create a perfect floor plan is only to create spaces you may want to work with, and necessary sections needed. You can achieve this by removing spaces that seem to serve similar purposes. For example, you can move all the offices together to create spaces for more products and services if you see no need to have different office departments.

Consider consolidation

It is recommended to consolidate areas whenever you can when creating a perfect floor plan like areas that require plumbing like kitchens, bathrooms, or toilets to be built close to each other to prevent having plumbing cores at multiple parts of the building. Few plumbing cores will reduce the cost of designing your commercial spaces.

Reducing Storage Areas

Any commercial business may need storage to store their products for backup. However, this doesn’t mean that you have multiple storage spaces, but you should opt to consolidate the redundant spaces into one storage space. This will create more space for other components of your business that may be needed. In addition, to avoid an overflow of products in the storage space, only order when you are low on stock.

Consider the flow of your business

Creating a perfect and efficient floor plan allows the business traffic to flow smoothly and seamlessly. You should trace how the movement of people and products should be in the facility. There should be adequate flow throughout your commercial building before committing the engineers to bring the plan into reality following the building process steps.

Implement your perfect floor plan

After you are pleased with your floor plan design, we are here to bring it to fruition. With the help of Mirodan Contracting, we help you solve complex problems that you may know and those you may not see coming. Our team of knowledgeable architects, designers, and skilled personnel will help you implement the perfect floor plan for your commercial spaces.

Projects from Drawings and Permits to Construction On Time. On Budget. Guaranteed. Complex projects are our speciality!

We are your trusted partner for complex construction projects in the Greater Toronto Area.

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Miro and wife worked together with us from the scratch – drawings, permits, advise, and everything we needed to get the units ready for inspection and approval. They did an excellent job, and work was done in a timely professional manner. Words cannot express our appreciation for the excellent and wonderful work they did.

They even connected us to other contacts like (media and other helps we needed to get our 2 retail stores in good and excellent shape to open). What an amazing couple, and their team of professionals.

This company did an excellent job – TOP NOTCH PROFESSIONALS! That’s all we can say.

We will not hesitate to HIGHLY RECOMMEND Mirodan Contracting to anyone who need their professional, excellent, efficient, and effective services. You will never regret it.”

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Floor Plans for Commercial Properties

Floor Plans for Commercial Properties are the most important marketing material if you are planning for Real Estate Sales Campaign. Whether you’re renting or you’re looking to invest, understanding your options for floors and options for windows is essential. Commercial property floor plans are usually drawn out so you’ll know exactly what the commercial property will look like when you’ve finished. A benefit of real estate floor plans is that you can get an accurate bearing on the building in one single glance. 

Table of Contents

Why do you need Floor Plans for Commercial Properties?

A to-scale plan of your commercial property is a vital tool. It will give you a clear overview of how your property will look and the layout of the building to make sure it meets your needs and complies with commercial building codes and standards. A floor plan will also help you estimate the rental budget and the costs of insurance and heating and air conditioning. A floor plan will give your commercial property its own identity and internal organization system. It will be possible to identify different rooms and entrances and other internal layouts.

Best option for property owners or property managers

In the commercial property market, floor plans are important for a myriad of reasons. They can provide a better understanding of the space. We also offer Real Estate Office Floor Plans . Whether you’re a property owner or a property manager, a well-thought-out floor plan can help improve your business decisions. These plans may include the size of the space, the materials used, and the layout. They can also help ensure a space is comfortable and welcoming from a person’s perspective.

Showing the appearance and internal layouts of commercial properties

Commercial property floor plans are broader, more detailed, and tell you what sort of building can be built there. Basic floor plans are designed to show the general appearance of the building. Commercial property floor plans are broadly designed to show the general appearance of the building. One needs to know all the details that are important before you take the building on lease.

Also, Read: Commercial Real Estate Floor Plans

Benefits of Commercial Floor Plans

One of the benefits of the floor plan is that it forces you to sit down and really consider everything that will be going on in a property. You can’t just go with a gut feeling, you have to set a budget and a plan. The floor plan will determine where the entryway is, how many people can fit in a cafe at once, and whether a property will have a traditional, modern, or eclectic feel.

Layout for easy understanding

There are many benefits to doing a floor plan for commercial property. It can help you to figure out what kind of layout and layout you want in your store and in your doors. Additionally, it will help you to understand the geographical layout of the area and how people will need to get in and out of your establishment. By doing a floor plan, you can ensure that all of the important areas in your building are in the right place. 

Multiple benefits with real estate objectives

So what are commercial floor plans? Commercial floor plans are layouts for business spaces. They show where everything should go, which will vary depending on the business. Commercial floor plans are used for retail spaces, offices, and more. Commercial floor plans show things like where the cash registers are, where to place the merchandise, the location of the restrooms , and where the different departments would be in an office.

The first step to understanding commercial floor plans is to understand what a commercial floor plan is. A commercial floor plan is a plan that shows where everything is going to be placed in a building. There are a number of benefits that come with a commercial floor plan. The first of which is the ability to make changes to a building as needed. 

Also, Read: Floor Plans for Houses

Commercial floor plans are a blueprint for your next business venture. You want to be sure that they have the facilities you need, as well as the facilities you would like. One of the advantages of commercial floor plans is that you can swap out, move, and change the layout at a later date. They’re a flexible way to ensure you have a property that can expand as your business does.

Commercial 2D Floor Plans

Commercial 2D floor plans are a lot like blueprints for a building. They can be either hand-drawn or they can be created digitally. Many planning professionals will use them both. 2D schematics are made by creating a plan for a building and then elevating it off the page. These schematics often include information such as the location of the elevators and emergency exits . The benefit of using this type of floor plan is that it can make navigating a building a lot easier.

Two-dimensional Commercial Floor Plans are the perfect method to illustrate spatial divisions for commercial buildings. Such plans are used to facilitate decision-making for clients, architects, builders, engineers, contractors, and anyone involved in the development process.

Benefits of Commercial 2D Floor Plans

Commercial 2D floor plans are more cost-effective than 3D commercial floor plans, and they’re more durable too. They’re made from a thicker type of paper so they don’t warp as easily as a 3D floor plan. 2D floor plans also offer a lot of opportunities for branding . They can be printed to resemble a blueprint that looks really imposing.

Commercial 3D Floor Plans

If you’re building a commercial property, you may be wondering what 3D commercial floor plans are, and if they’re worth investing in. 3D floor plans are plans that illustrate the interior of the commercial property, and they can be created through computer modeling. 3D commercial floor plans are excellent for visualizing what the property will look like before construction begins. Furthermore, they can be animated to create an accurate vision of the property.

There are three dimensions to a 3D commercial floor plan – height, width, and depth. Businesses can use this for a variety of purposes, one of which is to give potential customers a better idea of what the inside of the space looks like. Being able to show customers full 3D images of the inside of the space is an advantage because it provides them with more information than an image on an overhead map.

Benefits of Commercial 3D Floor Plans

Floor plans typically take up a lot of space on paper or on your computer screen. That means that many people don’t take advantage of the potential they offer because they take up too much time and effort. 3D commercial floor plans are quicker to find and show, and less time-consuming to use. They’re the perfect tool for anyone looking to sell or rent commercial space or to open their own business!

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2024 SEMA Show Floorplan is Now Available Online

By  SEMA News  Editors

SEMA has announced that the 2024 SEMA Show floorplan is now live and available at  SEMAShow.com/floorplan . The team behind the premier automotive specialty-equipment trade show spent weeks plotting booths to ensure brands could showcase their new innovations across the Las Vegas Convention Center campus, November 5-8. 

Now that the floorplan is live, automotive professionals, decision-makers, buyers, media members and attendees can maximize their Show experience by utilizing the interactive map and exhibitor list at  SEMAShow.com/floorplan .

The road to a successful 2024 SEMA Show begins with:

• Registration:  Secure your badge to see thousands of the newest automotive performance products from new and iconic exhibitors, discover the latest product and vehicle trends, and develop essential skills with education sessions. Register today at   semashow.com/register .
• Booking Your Hotel:   Hotel reservations are open   online here . SEMA Show and partner onPeak offer Showgoers the best rates at an extensive list of the best hotels in Las Vegas.
• Securing Discounted Airline Tickets: Show organizers have secured special airline fares and discounts for trips with Alaska Airlines , Delta Air Lines and United Airlines . More details here .
• Planning Your SEMA Show:   Visit the SEMA Show attendee website at  semashow.com/attendee  to begin your SEMA Show plan with key details on Show features, like the  New Product Showcase , the SEMA   Battle of the Builders , feature vehicle displays, SEMA FutureTech Studio ,  Optima Village, Overland Experience, Collision Repair & Refinish Stage  plus the  SEMA Garage: ADAS, Emissions, Product Development  area. In addition, find out which events are returning in 2024, like the SEMA Show Kickoff Breakfast, SEMA Cruise, SEMA Awards Presentation, SEMA Industry Awards Banquet, SEMA Business General Membership Meeting  and  SEMA Fest  (more details coming soon)!
• Reliving the SEMA Show:   Can't wait for Vegas? Browse dozens of innovative automotive products featured in the 2023 SEMA New Product Showcase  here .

Attendees can maximize their ROI by registering early and taking advantage of housing and travel discounts. Registration is only $40 for qualified attendees who register by June 28.  Deadlines and fees for other registration categories can be found at  semashow.com/register .  Hotel reservations, including for several new properties in Las Vegas, are available at the guaranteed lowest rates exclusively for Show attendees through SEMA's official hotel provider,  onPeak .

For more information about the 2024 SEMA Show, visit  semashow.com . Sign up for updates on SEMA Fest at  semafest.com .

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Middle East Crisis Israel Says It Will Send More Troops to Rafah, Defying International Pressure

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• A mourner during a funeral of three Palestinians killed in a raid in the West Bank. Raneen Sawafta/Reuters
• An aid ship off the coast of Gaza near a temporary floating pier is seen from central Gaza. Ramadan Abed/Reuters
• Humanitarian aid is airdropped near Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Haitham Imad/EPA, via Shutterstock
• A boy standing next to empty ammunition containers in Khan Younis. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
• Displaced Palestinians sitting in front of a devastated building in Khan Younis. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
• An Israeli tank patrolling in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Atef Safadi/EPA, via Shutterstock
• Mourners in Jerusalem carrying the body of an Israeli soldier killed by friendly fire. Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

The announcement suggests that Israel plans to push deeper into Rafah.

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said on Thursday that the Israeli army would send more troops to Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, which has become the focal point in the war between Israel and Hamas.

The announcement signaled that Israel intended to press deeper into Rafah despite international concerns about its ground invasion of the city, where more than a million displaced people had been sheltering.

“Hundreds of targets have already been attacked,” Mr. Gallant said after meeting with commanders in the Rafah area. “This operation will continue.”

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled the city in recent days, many of whom have had to move repeatedly over seven months of an unrelenting war, U.N. officials say.

Until now, Israeli troops and tanks have made only a limited incursion into eastern Rafah, and on May 7 they seized the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, a vital entry point for aid. The crossing remains shuttered, leaving wounded and ill people who need treatment abroad with no way out, and hundreds of aid trucks piling up in Egypt.

Diplomats and Palestinian officials have said the army’s operations in and around the crossing and nearby clashes between soldiers and Hamas fighters have created a dangerous environment for humanitarian workers.

Mr. Gallant, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, also said Israeli troops had destroyed tunnels in Rafah. Two Israeli officials said a key objective of the operation was to demolish tunnels between Egypt and Gaza that have allowed Hamas to replenish its weapons supply over the years.

Egypt and Israel maintain a decades-old peace treaty and close security cooperation, but Israel’s invasion of Rafah has tested the sensitive relationship.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly spoken of the need to destroy Hamas’s battalions in Rafah. In recent days, some Hamas militants have fled the city, according to four Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

The fighters have headed northward alongside civilians, the officials said. While it was unclear how many militants escaped, their flight underscored that at least some would be left unscathed by Israel’s invasion of the city.

Natan Odenheimer contributed reporting.

— Adam Rasgon reporting from Jerusalem

Families who fled Israel’s offensive find refuge but little else in Khan Younis.

Outside a United Nations-run school in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, on Thursday, a few trucks carrying humanitarian aid drove down the street while children tried to grab whatever they could, some making off with bags of sugar.

Inside the school’s courtyard, Ra’fat Abu Tueima, 62, sat in a tent with his wife, their young son and eight children from his late first wife. The family took up residence there last week after being displaced for the sixth time since the war in Gaza began. They had been sheltering in Rafah, near the enclave’s border with Egypt, when Israel launched an offensive, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee.

Mr. Abu Tueima, a taxi driver before the war, said that being displaced so many times had left them exhausted and without support. Aside from what the occasional aid truck can bring, few relief supplies, including food or tents, have been made available to the thousands of Palestinians who have fled to Khan Younis over the past week and a half, since the Rafah operation began.

“No one here helped us with anything,” Mr. Abu Tueima said, beginning to break down in tears.

“Life here is not fair at all for us; we want to live in peace like others,” he said. “In Rafah, people and charities offered us a little money, but here, not one single person asked about us. No one even cares about all of those children and women here.”

Israel’s offensive in Rafah has stopped nearly all aid from getting through the two main border crossings in southern Gaza. The United Nations’ World Food Program warned on Wednesday that its food and fuel stocks would run out in a matter of days, saying in a statement that “the threat of famine in Gaza never loomed larger.”

The agency also said it had difficulty reaching its main warehouse in Rafah because of the Israeli offensive and fighting in the area.

Fuel in Gaza has been in short supply ever since Israel announced a “complete siege” of the territory on Oct. 9, two days after the Hamas-led attack. The lack of fuel has threatened the operation of trucks, hospitals, generators, sewage pumping plants, desalination systems and other basic services for 2.2 million people.

At least 600,000 people have fled Rafah in just the last week, according to the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, known as UNRWA. Another 100,000 have been displaced from their homes and shelters in northern Gaza amid renewed evacuation orders from the Israeli military, which said it was engaged in intense fighting with Hamas fighters who had returned to the area.

In Khan Younis, “no one is distributing anything, no one is helping, nothing enters to help the people,” said Mohammed Aborjela, who arrived from Rafah days ago. The few goods arriving in the city on commercial trucks are being sold at high prices, he said.

The 27-year-old, a project coordinator with a development organization, said that Palestinians fleeing Rafah and other areas were paying hundreds of dollars for transportation on the backs of trucks and donkey carts, leaving them little money to pay for food or tents, which sell for at least 1,000 shekels (about $270) and as much as twice that.

“People don’t have this money,” he said. “People are sleeping in the streets waiting for aid groups to come and help them build a tent.”

The Tueima family fled Rafah a week ago and managed to bring only blankets and clothes. They had to pay 250 shekels for a van to transport them from the embattled city to the U.N. school in Khan Younis where they are now sheltering.

His wife, Najah Abu Tueima, 42, miscarried with twins days into the war after the family was forced under bombardment to flee its home near the Israeli border.

“We are here on our own,” Ms. Abu Tueima said. “I’m fed up and over-exhausted with the repeated evacuation journeys and suffering.”

— Raja Abdulrahim and Bilal Shbair

The Arab League calls for U.N. peacekeepers to be deployed in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Arab League called on Thursday for a United Nations peacekeeping force to be deployed in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank until a two-state solution can be negotiated, in a statement that also called for the U.N. Security Council to set a time limit for that political process.

The notion of deploying U.N. peacekeepers into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been mentioned occasionally by diplomats. But the Arab League’s statement appeared to be the first time the group had officially made such a request in a written document, according to Farhan Haq, a U.N. spokesman.

It’s unlikely that U.N. peacekeepers would be deployed to Gaza and the West Bank in the near future because sending U.N. peacekeepers into any conflict requires first the authorization of the Council . U.N. forces, which are typically drawn from the armed forces of multiple countries, do not enter live battle zones and do not engage in fighting. Both Israel and Hamas would also have to agree to having U.N. peacekeepers on the ground.

“There first has to be peace to keep,” Mr. Haq said. “We don’t go into active combat, and parties themselves have to agree on allowing the presence of peacekeepers. We don’t go in as an enemy force or an occupying force.”

The proposal came as part of a final statement issued by the league after its 22 members met on Thursday in Manama, Bahrain, a summit dominated by discussion about the war in Gaza.

In addition to calling for an immediate cease-fire and accusing Israel of obstructing those efforts, the Arab League called for “the deployment of United Nations international protection and peacekeeping forces in the occupied Palestinian territory until the two-state solution is implemented.”

The United Nations, Mr. Haq said, would be willing to take other measures called for by the Arab League, such as hosting or leading a conference toward peace and cease-fire in the conflict. But no definite plans have been discussed yet, he said.

Asked whether the United States would support the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers, a State Department spokesman, Vedant Patel, told reporters in Washington that bringing in “additional security forces” could potentially compromise Israel’s campaign to dismantle Hamas.

The Arab League’s statement, reported in Bahrain’s state news media, also reiterated the group’s position that a two-state solution should be based on the borders that were in place before the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. The group said that the Council should not only take “clear measures” toward implementing such a solution but also establish a time limit for doing so.

In an address to the summit on Thursday, António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, said that a two-state solution was “the only permanent way to end the cycle of violence and instability.”

“The war in Gaza is an open wound that threatens to infect the entire region,” Mr. Guterres said, adding that “nothing” could justify the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel or the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

The Arab League’s call for U.N. peacekeepers came amid fervent debate over how Gaza should be governed after the war. Negotiations over a cease-fire have been complicated by Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah . They were already stalled by staunch disagreements between Israel and Hamas over how long a truce should last and the terms of an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

— Anushka Patil and Farnaz Fassihi

Satellite images show widening destruction as Israeli forces push closer to central Rafah.

Destruction

Source: Satellite imagery from Planet Labs

Israeli forces appear to be pushing closer to the center of the city of Rafah, according to satellite imagery, which shows military vehicles and widespread destruction of neighborhoods more than two and a half miles into Gaza from the Israeli border, as well as Palestinians fleeing the city even outside of areas the Israeli military has said to evacuate.

Israeli troops are still on the eastern side of the city in southern Gaza, according to the imagery, captured on Wednesday by the commercial satellite company Planet Labs. But they have continued to move toward central Rafah in recent days, passing the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and Salah al-Din road, Gaza’s main artery.

Collapsed buildings and debris are seen throughout this neighborhood, where only limited damage was visible before Israel started its incursion last week.

While it is not possible to know exactly what caused the damage in areas throughout Rafah, much of what is seen is consistent with the aftermath of Israeli bombardment and ground operations elsewhere in Gaza since the war began last October.

Israel says Rafah is Hamas’s last stronghold, and a critical gateway for arms shipments smuggled into Gaza from Egypt. It says it is determined to make sure the militants who were behind the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel no longer pose a threat.

But Rafah has also been a refuge for more than a million Palestinians who fled Israeli bombardment in other parts of Gaza. The United Nations says that hundreds of thousands of people have fled Rafah in recent days, and the imagery indicates that large numbers of people are leaving the center of Rafah, even in areas outside of evacuation orders the Israeli military has issued for the city.

Areas of Rafah that were full of tents and vehicles just a week ago appeared empty on Wednesday.

Tents and people

U.N. logistics

Christoph Koettl contributed reporting.

— Lauren Leatherby

The U.S. military installs a temporary pier in Gaza for humanitarian aid.

The U.S. military anchored a temporary pier on Gaza’s coast on Thursday, creating a point of entry for humanitarian aid for the enclave, where the flow of supplies through land borders has largely come to a halt since Israel began its incursion into Rafah last week.

The aid will be loaded onto trucks that will begin moving ashore “in the coming days,” the U.S. Central Command said in a statement Thursday morning. U.S. officials had said last week that the floating pier and causeway had been completed , but that weather conditions had delayed their installation.

Israel has long opposed a seaport for Gaza, saying it would pose a security threat. As the humanitarian crisis in the territory has spiraled in recent months, with severe shortages of food, medicine and other basic needs, the U.S. military in March announced a plan to build a temporary pier to enable aid shipments via the Mediterranean Sea.

An American ship loaded with humanitarian aid, the Sagamore, set off for Gaza from Cyprus last week, and the aid was loaded onto a smaller vessel that had been waiting for the pier to be installed. The United Nations will receive the aid and oversee its distribution in Gaza, according to Central Command, which said no U.S. troops would set foot in the territory.

Over the next two days, the U.S. military and humanitarian groups will aim to load three to five trucks from the pier and send them into Gaza as a test of the process laid out by the Pentagon, said General Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“It’ll probably take another 24 hours to make sure everything is set up,” he told reporters on Thursday aboard a flight to Brussels, where he was attending a NATO meeting. “We have our force protection that’s been put in place, we have contract truck drivers on the other side and there’s fuel for those truck drivers as well.”

The Pentagon hopes the pier operation will bring in enough aid for around 90 trucks a day, a number that will increase to 150 trucks when the system reaches full operating capacity, officials say.

In a briefing on Thursday, an Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said supporting the temporary pier project was a “top priority.” He said the Israeli Navy and the 99th Division were supporting the effort by sea and by land, respectively.

Aid groups say the devastation in Gaza after seven months of Israeli bombardment, strict Israeli inspections and restrictions on crossing points are limiting the amount of aid that can enter Gaza. Israel has maintained that the restrictions are necessary to ensure that neither weapons nor supplies fall into the hands of Hamas.

In a briefing on Wednesday , Dan Dieckhaus, a director for the U.S. Agency for International Development, stressed that the maritime aid corridor was meant to supplement deliveries through land crossings, not replace them.

The Pentagon has said that the pier could help deliver as many as two million meals a day.

An aid group, World Central Kitchen, built a makeshift jetty in mid-March to deliver aid by sea to Gaza for the first time in nearly two decades. But those efforts came to an abrupt stop in early April after seven of the group’s workers were killed in an Israeli strike .

Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Helene Cooper contributed reporting.

— Victoria Kim

The top U.N. court hears new arguments from South Africa on Israel’s actions in Gaza.

South Africa on Thursday urged the judges of the United Nations’ top court to order Israel to end its ground assault on Rafah in southern Gaza, saying it put Palestinian life in the enclave at imminent risk of destruction.

The hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague came after South Africa requested last week that the court issue further constraints on Israel in its military campaign in Gaza. In filings disclosed by the court, South Africa cited the “irreparable harm” posed by Israel’s incursion into Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza where half of the territory’s population had sought refuge.

“It has become increasingly clear that Israel’s actions in Rafah are part of the end game in which Gaza is utterly destroyed as an area capable of human habitation,” Vaughan Lowe, a British lawyer, told the court. “This is the last step in the destruction of Gaza and its Palestinian people.”

Mr. Lowe was part of the South African legal team that presented its case over two hours on Thursday.

South Africa’s filings said the rights of Palestinians in Gaza were under threat, adding that Israel’s control over two major border crossings in southern Gaza — at Rafah and at Kerem Shalom — put at extreme risk the flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza and the ability for hospitals there to function.

“It is difficult to imagine such a situation could get worse, but, unfortunately, it has,” John Dugard, another member of the South African team, told the court.

Several members of the team addressed the court in an attempt to build their case, quoting frequently from warnings by senior United Nations officials that an assault on Rafah would worsen conditions for civilians and the enclave’s hunger crisis.

One member of South African legal team, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, quoted statements by senior Israeli officials that he said showed an intent to destroy Gaza as a whole and not simply Hamas, the country’s stated enemy.

The legal team also asked the court to order Israel to facilitate access to Gaza for aid workers, investigators, fact-finding missions and journalists.

One of the lawyers, Adila Hassim, showed the court a photo of shattered buildings in Khan Younis, a city north of Rafah, to illustrate the devastation caused by Israel’s military in Gaza as a whole. Ms. Hassim appeared to be on the verge of tears as she described the deaths of children in the military campaign.

Israel has vehemently denied South Africa’s claims, repeating that it has placed no restrictions on the amount of aid entering the enclave and that it has taken steps recently to ramp up the amount of food and other supplies going in, including opening two crossing points in northern Gaza.

Israel has also said that its latest assault on eastern Rafah was a “precise operation” targeting only members of Hamas, the terrorist group that led the Oct. 7 attacks, which Israeli authorities say killed more than 1,200 Israelis and led to the capture of about 250 others.

Israel is expected to make its defense before the court on Friday. Gilad Noam, Israel’s deputy attorney general for international law, is among the officials in the Israeli delegation who are expected to address the court. It was not clear when the court would issue a decision, but given that South Africa said on Thursday that its petition was extremely urgent because an assault on Rafah was ongoing, it appeared possible that a ruling could come soon.

The hearings are part of South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide, which it filed in December . In late January, the court ordered Israel to do more to prevent acts of genocide, but it stopped short of calling for a cease-fire. The main case, dealing with the accusation of genocide, is not expected to start until next year.

The court, established by the founding charter of the United Nations in 1945, was created to settle disputes between member states. It has no means of enforcing its orders, but the South Africa case has contributed to the international pressure on Israel to rein in its campaign in Gaza.

Marlise Simons and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

— Gaya Gupta and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

Iraqi groups close to Iran are joining in strikes on Israel.

Most attacks on Israel during the war in the Gaza Strip have come from Palestinian militants and from Hezbollah forces across the border in Lebanon. But over the past three months, an increasing number have been carried out by armed groups based in Iraq.

In just the first half of May, Iraqi groups have launched about 28 strikes, they said. Those are in addition to attacks by other proxy forces that Iran uses to extend its reach across the Middle East. The number is considerably higher than the number of strikes in the same period in April, when the Iraqi groups claimed responsibility for about 19 attacks.

These attacks, much like those launched by Hamas, Hezbollah and by other Iranian-backed groups, are intercepted by Israel or fail en route.

The most recent attack occurred early Thursday and was aimed at Eilat, where Israel has a naval base and at an oil refinery in Haifa, according to a statement from the Iraqi Resistance groups.

The Israeli military has not commented publicly on the strikes, although it sometimes notes — as it did in a Telegram post on May 15 — that it has intercepted missiles or drones coming “from the east toward Israeli territory.”

Since the Israeli military is not commenting on the attacks, it is difficult to know how many have been blocked by Israel’s multilayered missile defense.

“These drones and cruise missiles coming from Iraq and eastern Syria have very long journeys, and the Israelis have ample time and opportunity to intercept over Syria or over Iraq and Jordan,” said Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research institute.

On May 9, the Israeli military appears to have struck back, destroying a building used by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, according to reports from the Syrian Defense Ministry. The ministry said it had shot down some Israeli missiles launched from the Golan Heights toward the southern area of the Syrian capital, Damascus, where the building was.

In a statement, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq denounced the Israeli attack, calling it “a treacherous targeting of a cultural and media building” by the “usurping Zionist entity” and pledging revenge.

The Iraqi Resistance is made up of a number of armed groups, most prominently Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat al Nujaba and Sayyid al Shuhada. The last one appears not to have participated in the recent attacks on Israel.

The Iraqi groups’ strikes started in November, a month after the war between Israel and Hamas began, but there were only a few at first, according to the Washington Institute’s calendar of attacks by Iraqi armed groups linked to Iran.

In February, after the Iraqi Resistance was persuaded to halt its attacks on U.S. military camps and installations in Iraq and Syria, the number of strikes on Israel rose quickly. In total, the Iraqi Resistance groups have announced carrying out more than 70 attacks since the beginning of the war in Gaza, with most occurring in 2024.

A senior member of Kata’ib Hezbollah said in an interview that while the group’s drones and al-Arqab missiles from Iraq and Syria hit their targets only some of the time and that Israel can intercept rockets, the very fact of using them sends a message “that we will reach them soon.”

In the context of all the attacks on Israel, the number launched by Iraqi groups remains relatively low, but they are still destabilizing, said Shaan Shaikh, the deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“It’s certainly harassment,” he said, “and it presents a threat of escalation. If one gets through and hurts or kills someone, it would almost certainly result in an exchange of fire. And then you don’t know what could happen.”

— Alissa J. Rubin

5 Israeli soldiers were killed by gunfire from their own tanks, the military says.

Israeli tank fire killed five of Israel’s own soldiers in Gaza, a military spokesman said on Thursday, in the latest incident of self-inflicted casualties since Israel launched a ground invasion of the enclave in October.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said at a news briefing that the men had been killed by tank fire on Wednesday as they were fighting in a densely populated area of the territory.

“There was an incident of friendly fire — five soldiers were killed,” he said, adding, “The incident is under review.”

The Jerusalem Post reported that the men had been killed in Gaza City in the north of the territory, and that seven soldiers had also been wounded when two tanks opened fire. The Israeli military later named the five , who were from the Paratroopers Brigade, on its website.

The bulk of Israeli forces began a withdrawal from northern Gaza earlier this year, with Israel saying it had defeated Hamas battalions in the area. But in recent weeks Israeli troops have returned to the north, including Gaza City, to battle fighters from Hamas they said have regrouped.

About 278 Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza since the start of the military offensive more than seven months ago, the military has said. It said in December that one-fifth of the 105 soldiers who had been killed to that point had died in accidents and that, of those deaths, 13 were the result of friendly fire.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg

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