BOMA/SIOR Info Guide

BOMA for Commercial Office Buildings

 

The Difference Between BOMA 1980 & 1996

The key difference between BOMA 1980 and BOMA 1996 is that BOMA 1980 measures buildings on a floor-by-floor basis whereas BOMA 1996 measures buildings on a building-wide basis.

The BOMA 1980 standard uses Floor Common Area exclusively which means that it is possible to determine the rentable area of tenants by measuring only the floors that the tenants are located on. But there are important limitations to consider with the use of Floor Common Area in BOMA 1980. The most common example of this limitation is when the standard is strictly applied and the ground floor lobby area of a commercial office building is calculated as Floor Common Area. Since the lobby will be proportionately shared by only the ground floor tenants, the results are typically very large, unmarketable gross-up factors.

The BOMA 1996 standard uses both Floor Common Area and Building Common Area which means that the entire building must be measured in order to determine the rentable area of tenants. The use of both Floor Common Area and Building Common Area in BOMA 1996 makes it possible to proportionately distribute the common areas of a building in a more practical manner. With the inclusion of Building Common Area in BOMA 1996, a ground floor lobby area is calculated as Building Common Area and is therefore proportionately allocated to every tenant in a building, resulting in lower gross-up factors for ground floor tenants and a better distribution of common area in general. Building Common Area also allows for the addition of areas such as mechanical penthouses which would not be included in BOMA 1980. This results in larger building rentable areas and improved recovery of operating costs. A building measured according to BOMA 1996 almost always yields higher Rentable Areas than the same building measured to BOMA 1980.

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