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When looking for new office premises<\/a>, you may notice that listings advertise office space using different terms, such as usable, rentable or common area square footage. It\u2019s important to understand what each of these terms means, so you can choose an office that suits your space requirements and budget.<\/p>\n In this article we look at the differences between usable, rentable, and common area square footage, and we discuss what tenants need to be aware of when evaluating and budgeting for their space requirements.<\/p>\n Contents<\/p> This refers to the amount of space each tenant has exclusive access to. The specific inclusions and exclusions vary depending on whether the office in question takes up an entire floor, or the floor is shared with other tenants.<\/p>\n In full-floor setups, usable square footage includes every area within the floor, whether it\u2019s used by office workers or not. This includes workspaces, restrooms, kitchens, breakout rooms, common areas, reception areas, meeting rooms, hallways, as well as rooms used for technical and janitorial purposes. The only exclusions are any areas that aren\u2019t exclusively used by the tenant occupying that floor, such as stairwells or elevator shafts. These are part of the unit\u2019s gross square footage, which isn\u2019t taken into account<\/u><\/a> for determining lease rates.<\/p>\n In multi-tenant floors, usable square footage includes workspaces and any other rooms allocated for the specific use of each tenant. For example, shared bathrooms or kitchenettes wouldn\u2019t be included, but if each tenant has exclusive use of a restroom, this is added to the office\u2019s total usable square footage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rentable square footage is the figure used to determine a tenant\u2019s annual base rent. In office leases, base rent costs are quoted per square foot\/year, so it\u2019s important to understand what exactly is included on each base rent square foot.<\/p>\n This is where the concept of rentable square footage comes into play. To calculate rentable square footage for it, you need to know two elements:<\/p>\n Rentable square footage = total usable square footage + pro rata share of the building\u2019s common space.<\/em><\/p>\n Because the entire building\u2019s common space is taken into account (and not just the workspace or common areas on a given floor) rentable square footage can be substantially higher than actual workspace. In most cases, it accounts for an extra 12% to 20% on top of usable square footage<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n When visiting the premises and talking to a landlord or agent, you\u2019ll want to ask about the building\u2019s total common areas, as this has a direct impact on rental rates. Before looking at rentable square footage in a commercial space in more detail, we need to define what common areas include.<\/p>\n This term refers to all areas of the building that are accessible to tenants. They may include the building\u2019s lobby and reception (as opposed to reception areas on each floor or for each tenant, which are part of usable square footage), restrooms for tenants and visitor use, hallways, and any other amenities located inside the office building such as gyms, cafeterias, storage units, building management offices, technical or mechanical rooms, etc.<\/p>\n Common area square footage is expressed as a percentage and represents each tenant\u2019s share of common spaces. Shares are not equally allocated, instead, they\u2019re determined taking into account the square footage of each office.<\/p>\n To calculate the share of common area square footage, you divide the building\u2019s total area by your office\u2019s total area, and turn the result into a percentage. For example, let\u2019s say you\u2019re interested in leasing a 10,000 square feet office in a 100,000 square foot building. The common area share would be 10%, because 100,000 \/ 10,000 = 10.<\/p>\n The calculation above determines your share of common area square footage, which is also called \u201cthe load factor\u201d.<\/p>\n The load factor percentage isn\u2019t an indicator of how much common area space you can use. In the example above, a common area factor of 10% doesn\u2019t mean you can use 10% of the building\u2019s common areas, so a higher load factor doesn\u2019t imply more use rights or extends the square footage of your lease in any way.<\/p>\n Instead, the load factor is used to determine the amount of space for which you\u2019ll be paying rent. To calculate how much square footage the load factor adds, use this formula:<\/p>\n Above, a load factor of 10% is added to the total usable office space to obtain the rentable square footage value:<\/p>\n 10,000 x 0.10 =<\/strong> 1,000<\/em><\/p>\n 10,000 +<\/strong> 1,000 =<\/strong> 11,000<\/em><\/p>\n This means that your base rent would be calculated on the basis of 11,000 square feet.<\/p>\n The load factor is an important consideration when evaluating and budgeting for office space requirements. Understanding its implications can put you in a better position to negotiate the terms and conditions of an office lease.<\/p>\n Other things to consider include:<\/p>\n Some situations where the load factor isn\u2019t easily determined or may not be proportional include:<\/p>\n Always bear in mind that usable square footage figures are used to determine whether an office will be able to accommodate staff and operate with ease, whereas rentable square footage figures are taken into account for financial and budgeting purposes.<\/p>\n Now that you’re aware of the differences between rentable square feet and usable square feet \u2013 as well as common area factor \u2013 it’s time to rent your very own workspace. The expert commercial real estate team at Offices.net<\/a> are here to connect you and your business to the ideal office space anywhere in the United States. From major office buildings in New York City<\/a> to flexible coworking spaces in Austin<\/a>, Offices.net does all the heavy lifting to ensure that you get exactly what you need, contact us<\/a> today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When looking for new office premises, you may notice that listings advertise office space using different terms, such as usable, rentable or common area square footage. It\u2019s important to understand what each of these terms means, so you can choose an office that suits your space requirements and budget. In this article we look at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569,3,380],"tags":[584,585,582,583],"class_list":["post-2225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-569","category-business-advice","category-office-space-options-series","tag-common-area-factor","tag-common-area-square-footage","tag-rentable-square-feet","tag-usable-square-feet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/offices.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/offices.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/offices.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offices.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offices.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2225"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/offices.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2353,"href":"https:\/\/offices.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions\/2353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/offices.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offices.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offices.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Usable Square Footage<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
Rentable Square Footage<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nCommon Area Square Footage<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
What is Common Area Load Factor?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nThings to Consider When Looking for Office Space<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
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Contact Us Today<\/span><\/h2>\n