Resources: How the BOMA 2010 Standard Works

The BOMA 2010 Standard(s)

The BOMA 2010 standard for measuring office buildings can be a bit confusing. The official name is OFFICE BUILDINGS: STANDARD METHODS OF MEASUREMENT (ANSI/BOMA Z65.1 – 2010). What makes it a bit odd as a 'standard' is that it includes two completely different ways to allocate common areas in the building. There is a Method A and a Method B. Landlords can choose to use one method or the other.

For detailed and authoritative information on the standard, please purchase a copy from BOMA. What follows here is a very brief editorial overview:

Method A

Method A is know as the 'Legacy' method. It is very similar to the BOMA 96 standard with a few clarifications and improvements. If you understand how the BOMA 1996 standard works, then Method A will be very familiar.

Method B

Method B is designed to address an issue that some people had with the 96 standard. By calculating a floor gross-up and then a building gross up, the effective gross-up varied from floor to floor in the 96 standard. Also, if a floor corridor configuration was changed, then the gross-up on that floor would change.

Method B creates a single 'load factor' or gross up for the entire building by means of two innovations. First, it uses the concept of 'Base Building Circulation'. This is the circulation or corridor configuration that would be required in a typical multi-tenanted floor layout. It may not correspond to the actual circulation on any particular floor. The next innovation is to then gross up all the useable space in the building equally. You can think of this as treating all the suites as though they were all on a single floor.

The benefit of Method B is that it allows landlords to apply a single load factor ratio to all of the space in the building. The drawback is that this method relies on a concept of 'imaginary circulation' that can be confusing.

BOMA Measurement Standards

The following is a presentation that we use to give an overview of BOMA standards for measuring office buildings:

For more detailed information, please purchase a copy of the standard from BOMA here. It is clearly written and has several good illustrations.