The new 2017 BOMA Office Measurement Standard is out and this could be a game changer depending on your building layout. Yes, your building may have grown.
I was recently in a client meeting going over our drawings and BOMA calculations for a downtown office building and upon hearing of the newest release of standards I was asked, “Why did they re-do the standards and was it necessary?”
The answer is quite simple, the BOMA Office Standards were rewritten and tweaked to closer align with the International Property Measurement Standards: Office Buildings (IPMS-Nov. 2014).
It makes sense that we should all be using the same ruler to measure and calculate building area especially with foreign investors so keen on American commercial properties. Let’s all speak the same language.
Getting to the point – what is different and why should you care?
With the newest BOMA Standards there are a few areas we can no longer include in your rentable square footage but in general those areas are very small compared to the overall building.
Areas such as large exterior door setbacks and restricted headroom under 7 feet are no longer counted. The other main difference is where to draw the boundary area (previously known as Interior Gross Area) including where the dominant portion of your exterior enclosure is measured. Each window is taken in to effect as its own surface instead of using the glass line across the building in some instances.
The good news, bigger building? HOW? The 2017 BOMA Office Standards allow for the inclusion of areas that were previously excluded from Rentable Area of a building. Areas such as Balconies, Courtyards, Unenclosed Occupant Circulation and Finished Rooftop Terraces may now be included in your rentable area. We can also include the elevator shaft, stairwell, and other major vertical penetrations at the lowest level of a multi-story building as building common area distributed proportionally among all tenants.
The implications of all this additional square footage in some office buildings mean we need to get used to a new normal with our load factors. Add-on factor, load factor, USF/RSF – we all know the terms used to distribute the common area among tenants and what the local market numbers are. In Austin we usually have a 12%-20% add-on factor for most office buildings depending on the age of the architecture. The newest standards could easily raise that number by 1%-10% depending on the layout of your building. Rooftop terraces are becoming the norm in new office buildings in temperate climates. Southern tenant reps may have to get used to hearing load factors of 25%-35% in buildings with exterior amenities we all love so much.
I’ve read all the 6 BOMA Standards cover to cover and they did it! This time the 2017 Office Standards are well written with great illustrations, easy to understand and it addresses all of the issues we have struggled with for 20 years. KUDO’s to the BOMA Task Force-great job!
The previous version was published in 2010 and this latest rewrite adds valuable additional square footage to some office buildings which can translate in to perhaps millions of dollars in increased revenues, it’s worth taking a look at!
