New Plan?

We have been very busy through the Holidays and had a great Christmas. I hope all of you did as well.
I met with an architect yesterday and explained the challenges we are facing with our layout in this Retail to Retaurant space conversion. He has suggested a new layout entirely that will place our equipment requiring water and drains in the back portion of the space, closer to the utilities. We also need to design our space to achieve an occupancy rating under 30. If we are at 30 or higher, code requires two UL rated fire doors with crash bars, which cost about $3000 each. If our occupancy is less than 30, our existing doors will be OK.
The architect's name is Vic Chapman. He grew up in Southern California, went to Berkley, and has been in Colorado Springs for 16 years. He was the head of campus planning for Memorial Hospital, then spent several years at the El Paso County Reigional Building Department. He knows everyone at Regional, and he knows the code inside and out. He was the senior plan reviewer for several years, so he knows what he is doing (major understatement). We are very thankful to have access to his expertise... I'm just wondering how much he is going to cost, though! I'm guessing $9000 for Architectural plans, electrical engineering support, and plumbing/HVAC engineering support.
I completed some wall work up to this point, but it was just demo or modification of existing walls. I have not framed any new walls while waiting for answers about our layout. It looks very likely that it will change significantly.
I have a friend from a church we went to in 1997-1998 who is a licensed GC here in Colorado. He left Colorado in approximately 1998-99 with his wife, who went to medical school out of state. They then lived in Hawaii for her residency. They recently returned to Colorado, and Ryan would like to have a hand in our construction. I will be meeting with Ryan next week to talk with him about it...
I've got to go shovel the new 14" of snow off the driveway...
Later,
JD