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It seems that an office floor containing Building Amenity Area penalizes those Tenants on that floor, as their Floor Allocation Ratio is higher than if there were no Building Amenity on that floor. Reference Page 74 of the published standard comparing Suites in the 100 level vs Suites in the 200 level.
Hi Ken,
It's actually specifically designed to not penalize the tenants on a floor with Building Amenity Area. Building Amenity Areas are calculated just like Occupant Area in that they are also allocated a proportionate share of Floor Service Area. You'll notice that Building Amenity Area is part of the Floor Usable Area, which makes it part of the Floor Allocation Ratio.
The difference you noted in the Floor Allocation Ratio in the Global Summary of Areas example found in the standard are due to other hypothetical factors. On the ground floor you have 980 sq ft of Floor Service Area and 16,320 sq ft of Usable Area, whereas on Floor 2 you have almost the same amount of Floor Service Area (950 sq ft) and 23,250 sq ft of Floor Usable Area. Therefore on the ground floor there is a much higher ratio of Floor Service Area to Floor Usable Area compared to the second floor, resulting in a higher gross up on the ground floor. This scenario is actually quite common because the ground floor will often contain Building Service Areas which take up a good portion of the overall floor area. That is exactly what's happening in the example chart - the main lobby is 3,000 sq ft and allocated as Building Service Area.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
David