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In order to facilitate a comparison of the cost of space among buildings, The Real Estate Board of New York, Inc., recommends that owners use standard definitions of gross area and usable areas, and clearly explain how the definitions are used to calculate rentable area. Architectural plans and calculations should be displayed to tenant, if requested.

The Real Estate Board of New York, Inc. recommends the following definitions and methods as the Standard Method of Floor Measurement in office buildings.

Gross Area of Building:
        The gross area of the building shall be all the floor area within the exterior walls of the building and enclosed by a rod and, in addition, freestanding power plants or other utility structures to extent that they service the building.

Gross Area of Floor:
        Determine the gross area by measuring all the space on the floor to the inside finished surface of the exterior walls. Where the exterior walls contain windows, fixed clear glass, or other transparent material, the measurement should be taken to the inside surface of the glass or other transparent material.

Usable Area, Single Tenant Floor:
        Subtract from the gross area of the floor the following, including the finished enclosing wall:
    ·Public elevator shaft and elevator machines and their enclosing walls.

    ·Public stairs and their enclosing walls.

    ·Heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning facilities (including pipes, ducts and shafts) and their enclosing walls, except that shafts serving a floor in question shall not be subtracted.

    ·Fire tower and fire tower court and their enclosing walls.

    ·Main telephone equipment rooms and main electric switchgear rooms, except that telephone equipment, and electric switch gear rooms serving the floor exclusively shall not be subtracted.


Usable Area, Multiple Tenant Floor:
    ·First, calculate the usable area as if for a single tenant floor.

    ·Then deduct the corridor area, including toilets, supply rooms, etc., but excluding the enclosing wall of the corridor.

    ·Measure the net usable area of each space on the floor by measuring each enclosing wall which is a building exterior wall to the inside finished surface of the exterior wall, or to the inside surface of the glass as the case may be. Measure demising walls to the center and walls which abut corridors to the corridor side of the finished surface of the corridor wall.

    ·To determine the usable area on a multiple tenant floor, apportion the corridor area to each space by multiplying the corridor area by a fraction, whose numerator is the net usable area of the space and whose denominator is the total of the net usable areas of all the spaces on the floor, and add the result to the net usable area of the space.

Below-grade,
Cellar and Sub-Cellar Space:
To determine the usable area of below grade, cellar and sub-cellar areas, follow the same procedures as is appropriate for single or multiple tenant floors except, that, in addition, the following should be omitted from usable area.
    ·Machine rooms and pump rooms and their enclosing walls.

    ·Electric switchgear rooms and their enclosing walls.

    ·Telephone equipment rooms and their enclosing walls.

    ·Steam and water meter rooms and their enclosing walls.

    ·All space devoted to servicing the operation of the building, i.e. cleaning contractors, storage, building maintenance shop, building engineer's office, etc.


Full Disclosure Provision:
        The variations in location of mechanical equipment, in the zoning regulations under which they were built, and in structural design among buildings of different ages require different methods of calculating rentable space. In view of this, The Real Estate Board of New York, Inc. recommends that owners fully disclose their method of calculating rentable area in a building.

Stores
  1. The term “store” as used herein shall mean only that space at ground floor level suitable for commercial use.
  2. The rentable area of a store shall be computed by measuring from the building line in the case of street frontages, and from the inside surface of other outer building walls to the finished surface of the corridor side of corridor partition and from the center of the partitions that separate the premises from adjoining rentable area.
  3. No deductions shall be made for columns and projections necessary to the building.
  4. Rentable area of a store shall include all area within the outside walls, less building stairs, fire towers, elevator shafts, flues, vents, stacks, pipe shafts, vertical ducts with their enclosing walls if serving more than one tenant.
  5. Private stairs, private elevators, toilets, air conditioning facilities, janitors' closets, slop sinks, electrical closets and telephone closets, with their enclosing walls exclusively serving only that store, shall be included in rentable area. When air conditioning facilities serve more than one tenant area, they shall be apportioned in the same manner as that used for single tenancy floors.
  6. Where a store fronts on a plaza or arcade which is intended for use by the general public and it not for the exclusive use of the store tenants, its customers, etc., the area of the plaza or arcade shall not be included n determining the rentable are of the store.

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