There are many types of commercial buildings with many purposes. One significant distinguishing factor between buildings are those that are developed to be sold or leased to tenants not involved in the design and construction process and those that are developed to be occupied by the owners. Historically, there has been a tendency to believe (and a fair amount of proof to substantiate) that developer-managed projects result in fewer long-term friendly buildings than owner-developed projects.
Because commissioning is a process geared towards enhancing the chances of achieving excellent short- and long-term performance of building systems, nonowner developers have often discarded commissioning as an unnecessary first cost in a building they are looking to "off load" as quickly as possible. The theory has been that once the problems and operating costs started to surface, the developers would be long gone and not be held responsible.