BOMA/SIOR Info Guide

BOMA for Commercial Office Buildings

 

BOMA 1980 (ANSI/BOMA Z65.1-1980)

Known as the "BOMA Z65.1-1980 Standard Method for Measuring Floor Area in Office Buildings", the BOMA 1980 Standard is still a widely used standard method of determining rentable areas in commercial office buildings. The BOMA 1980 Standard measures buildings on a floor-by-floor basis. It is a simple and effective approach of measuring a single typical floor for the purpose of determining the Usable and Rentable Areas of it's occupying tenants. Unfortunately, the simplicity of the BOMA 1980 standard can also be its biggest drawback because the use of BOMA 1980 will often result in unfair gross-up factors, especially to ground floor tenants.

Key BOMA 1980 Definitions

  • USABLE AREA means the actual occupiable area of a floor or tenant.

  • RENTABLE AREA means the floor or tenant's USABLE AREA and it's proportionate share of FLOOR COMMON AREA.

  • FLOOR COMMON AREA refers to areas common to all the tenants of a floor, such as corridors, elevator lobbies, washrooms, janitor closets, telecommunications and utility areas. Floor Common Area is often found in and around a building core.

  • MAJOR VERTICAL PENETRATION refers to stairs, elevator shafts, flues, pipe shafts, vertical ducts and the like, and their enclosing walls, which serve more than one floor of a building. Major Vertical Penetrations are excluded from Usable and Rentable Area.

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