How do you measure square footage for C0mmercial Real Estate?
The question comes up quite a bit from tenants looking to lease Commercial Real Estate in Austin Texas. How do you measure square footage for Commercial Real Estate? Typically the language you will see is the following “approximate square footage” as opposed to the words “actual square footage“. It is not such an easy answer, measuring space can be somewhat complicated and some may think it requires an engineering degree!
To try and make it simple, here are some simple definitions on how to measure square footage for commercial real estate. First let’s mention the standard by which square footage is measured, the accepted standard is set by BOMA (the Building Owners and Management Association), which is applied to all office building space.
Usable Area for commercial real estate
The method used here for measuring square footage for commercial real estate office space is for the occupied area of a floor or a suite by the tenant. This is of prime interest to the tenant in determining the space measurements that is being offered to them. The amount of commercial real estate space can vary in an office building meaning it can expand or contract over time as office space is remodeled. Usable area is computed by measuring to the finished surface side of the office side of the corridor and the other permanent walls to center of the partitions that separate the office space from adjoining office space. It is also measured to the inside of the finished surface of the dominant portions of the outer building wall.
Rentable Area square footage
This method measures the tenant’s pro-rata share of the entire office floor for commercial real estate, the rent-able area is fixed for the life of the office building. This method is recommended for computing the total income area of commercial real estate office space. It is also recommended to compute the tenant’s pro-rata share of office rent escalations. The rent-able area for commercial real estate is measured by inside finished surface of the dominant portions of the permanent outer building walls excluding any major vertical penetrations. No deductions are made for columns and projections . This is done by taking the Usable area X the Rent able Area /Usable Area .
Finished surface- is a wall , ceiling or floor surface including glass as prepared for the tenant’s use.
Dominant portion- the portion of the inside finished surface of the permanent outer building wall which is 50% or more of the vertical floor to ceiling dimension measured at the dominant portions
