Definitions O-Z
Office Area:
Enclosed space usable for personnel, furniture, equipment and office support areas, which has suitable finishes, lighting, environmental controls, power, communications support and ceiling heights.
Power Plan:
Power plans depict electrical outlets, voice/data ports, circuits, and a variety of other elements.
REBNY Standard:
“The Recommended Method of Floor Measurement for Office Buildings” published by the REBNY. Board member Realtors quoting square footages must use this standard, and it is used only in New York City and nearby areas of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Record Drawings:
Drawings (plans), prepared after construction is complete that represent the work, accomplished under the contract.
Reflected Ceiling Plans (RCP):
RCP is an essential part of the as-built documentation for office structures and other commercial structures. RCP is rarely done for residential structures due to the standard construction methods used. Typical items displayed are ceiling tiles with grids, lighting layouts, emergency exits, soffits, skylights, HVAC registers, ceiling features etc.
Rentable Area:
Also called Rentable Square Footage (RSF), the area of a building, floor or suite used as the basis for calculating Base Rent. Different measurement standards define this in different ways. Refer to individual standards for measurement methods and definitions.
Residential:
Buildings or portions thereof used for human habitation, including single and multi-family houses, row houses, rental apartments, residential condominiums and rooming houses, but not hotels or motels. Only single family units and row houses have a published measurement standard. See NAHB Residential Standard. R/U
Ratio:
A figure greater than one, the numerator of which is Rentable Area and the denominator of which is Usable Area, which allocates Common Areas to Usable Areas and Basic Rentable Areas. There are Floor R/U Ratios, Building R/U Ratios and occasionally Campus R/U Ratios. Refer to specific standards for detailed definitions. This is often incorrectly called an R/U Factor, and is sometimes referred to as an Add-on Factor, Common Area Factor, Loss Factor, Load Factor, Gross-up Factor or Partial Floor Factor.
Scope:
Identification of all requirements of a project or contract.
Single Tenant Floor:
A floor on which all usable area is completely occupied or leased by a single tenant.
SIOR:
The Society of Office and Industrial Realtors, is an organization that collaborated with BOMA in development of the BOMA Industrial Measurement Standard.
Space Plan:
A floor plan which shows the degree to which your space requirements and layout will fit into a particular space. This plan typically shows interior office walls only.
Square Footage:
A term used in the BOMA Standard and others in the real estate industry in parts of the world under the Imperial System to describe a quantity of floor area.
Storage Area:
Space suitable only for the storage of materials and equipment and not for occupancy by personnel, by virtue of inadequate lighting, finishes, environmental controls, power, access, egress, or ceiling height.
Store Area:
Space on the street level of an office building that is suitable for retail occupancy. This is not the same as retail space in shopping centers and is defined in the BOMA and New York Standards.
Tenant:
An occupant (Lessee) of space who does not own the space, but who has tendered legal consideration to the owner (Lessor) in return for certain rights for the use and “quiet enjoyment” of a defined demised floor area.
Tenant Area:
Space that is used exclusively by a tenant for their personnel, furniture, equipment, storage, support, and processes of any sort. It includes Secondary Circulations and, for a tenant occupying a full floor, Primary Circulation as well. It may be applied to any type of occupancy (office, industrial, retail, etc.) and so can be measured many different ways.
Usable Area:
The space which the occupant actually occupies, which is less than the rentable area.
Vacancy:
There are two types of vacancies - floor areas that are not leased to a tenant and floor areas that are not occupied but are still rented by tenants under a lease. In real estate economic surveys, the Vacancy Factor usually refers to floor areas that are not leased and space which is under a lease but not occupied is called Shadow Space.
Value Engineering:
A specialized cost control technique, which utilizes a systematic and creative analysis of the functions of a project or operation to determine how best to achieve the necessary function, performance, and reliability at the minimum life cycle cost. In other words: we figure how to make the project less expensive.
Variance:
The difference between two area calculations of a subject suite, floor or building area made by two individuals. The area calculation of a building owner is deemed accurate if the variance between their area calculation and that of another party is less than 2% under the BOMA, GWCAR and NAHB Standards.
Working Drawings:
Graphic depictions of a building on paper or CAD, prepared as the basis for a construction contract. They include floor plans at multiple scales, building and wall sections, details and schedules, as well as architectural, structural, mechanical and electrical drawings. They do not reflect changes made during construction unless stamped “As-built” or “Record Drawings”. They are otherwise referred to as Construction Drawings or CDs.