QD Design is a HUB-certified architecture and MEP engineering firm based in Cypress, Texas that serves San Antonio commercial projects with architectural drawings plus sealed mechanical, electrical, and plumbing permit sets under one contract, led by a Texas-licensed Professional Engineer. San Antonio is an active service area for the firm: our PE licensure applies statewide, the codes are the same model codes we work under every week, and our delivery process is built to run in any Texas jurisdiction.
Same State, Same Codes, Same Process
San Antonio reviews commercial projects under the same code family as the rest of our Texas work: IBC, IMC, IPC, and IECC 2021 editions, the NEC for electrical, and Texas Accessibility Standards enforced through TDLR — a state-level process that is identical whether your project is in San Antonio, Houston, or Austin. Projects valued over the $50,000 statutory threshold require TDLR registration and accessibility review; we file the registration and coordinate that review as standard scope. Local amendments differ city by city, and reading each jurisdiction’s amendment package before drawing is a core part of our process — it is how we cleared a 25-comment deficiency notice in Tomball and 38 review cycles across three agencies in Sugar Land.
A Delivery Model Proven Beyond Our Home Metro
To be direct: our completed portfolio is concentrated in Houston, Austin, and Dallas–Fort Worth, and we have not yet published a completed San Antonio case study. What we can show is that our delivery model works far from our office:
- Odessa, TX — a multi-component travel center (gas station, national smoothie-franchise QSR tenant, and playground facilities) engineered as one coordinated MEP package in West Texas, including hazardous-location electrical at the fuel canopy.
- Tyler, TX — MEP design for the Thomas Trace assisted living community, carried through phased city reviews across five months to approval.
- Royal Palm Beach, FL and the Minneapolis metro — mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design delivered out of state, coordinated remotely with local teams to client acceptance.
Drawings, submittals, and written plan-review responses move electronically. Site investigation is scheduled where the project needs it. Distance has not been the variable that decides whether our permits get issued — the quality of the documents has.
What We Can Design in San Antonio
The same building types that fill our Texas portfolio: restaurants and commercial kitchens (Type I hoods, grease waste, NFPA 96), medical, dental, and veterinary clinics, med-spas, retail and franchise buildouts, fitness studios, daycares and schools, churches, warehouses, and office TIs. Scope can be MEP engineering in support of your architect, or architecture + MEP together under one contract — one author for the whole permit set, which removes the cross-firm coordination errors that generate extra review rounds.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has QD Design completed projects in San Antonio?
Not yet — and we won’t pretend otherwise. San Antonio is an active service area: our Texas PE licensure applies statewide, and our delivery model is proven on completed projects in Odessa, Tyler, Houston, Austin, and Dallas–Fort Worth, plus out-of-state work in Florida and Minnesota. Your reviewer sees the same sealed, coordinated documents our other jurisdictions see.
Can a Cypress-based firm seal MEP drawings for a San Antonio permit?
Yes. Texas Professional Engineer licensure is statewide — a PE seal from our Cypress office is valid in San Antonio exactly as it is in Houston or Austin. The same is true of the TDLR accessibility process, which is administered at the state level for projects over the $50,000 statutory threshold.
How do you handle San Antonio’s local code amendments?
The same way we handle every new jurisdiction: we pull the city’s adopted codes and amendment package before design starts and build the drawings to them. That preparation is how we resolved a 25-comment deficiency notice in Tomball — a first-time jurisdiction for us at the time — and it is standard practice on every project.
Will you answer City of San Antonio plan-review comments?
Yes. Written responses to plan-review comments, through every round until the permit is issued, are included in our standard scope on all projects — not billed as extras. On recent projects elsewhere in Texas that meant five review rounds in Austin and 38 review cycles across three agencies in Sugar Land, all answered in-house.
Start Your San Antonio Project
Bring us the first commercial project you want permitted in San Antonio and we’ll show you how the one-contract model works. Send us your floor plan — fee proposal within one business day.