- Leah Anderson
- TSAO DESIGN GROUP
- October 9, 2013
My company recently executed a 2010 BOMA Office Buildings study for a 29 floor office building and the results that went to the client were much lower than the numbers they received for a 1996 BOMA study. Is there a clear explanation as to why this could happen to explain to the client?
There is also a smaller building on the property owned by the same landlord that they want to include in their calculations. It is not an office building; there is a basement and two floors dedicated to a restaurant with an outdoor eating patio on level one. The third floor is dedicated to a daycare and then the roof has an unenclosed playground as well as unenclosed building service spaces. How is this roof level calculated into the space. Furthermore, does this building have to be classified with a separate standard, such as Mixed Use? Or is it classified as additional space to the office building?
- Adam Fingret
- Extreme Measures Inc.
- October 10, 2013
1. Normally, there shouldn't be a big difference. BOMA 1996 and BOMA 2010 use similar criteria for calculating area. One thing to watch out for with shrinking buildings, is Occupant Storage, a new class of space in BOMA 2010 that is separately tracked and does not factor into Total Rentable Area (unlike BOMA 1996 which treats storage as Usable or Common Area). It's difficult to tell without seeing both analyses, but look out for the usual suspects - missing CAD files, typical floor counts etc.
2. Ideally, you should treat this second building as standalone office (or retail?) building and calculate it independently - this is by far, the easiest way to approach it. The Mixed Use Standard is not really intended for multiple buildings, so much as it is for multiple uses in the same building. You cannot count unenclosed areas like the roof as Rentable or Leasable under BOMA Standards.
- Leah Anderson
- TSAO DESIGN GROUP
- October 14, 2013
Thank you Adam.
So to clarify; this separate building (Restaurant and DayCare) cannot be analyzed using the Office Standards that we used for the office building on the same property? Do we need to purchase a separate standard (MixedUsed or Retail?)