How is the term GLA connected with lease area?

Architects, investors, property managers and experts among property advisors often ask me about the legal basis of the term GLA (Gross Leasable Area) and the practical uses of it when measuring according to different standards. Therefore, I’ve decided to discuss this topic basing on the most commonly used standards.

The term GLA

The term GLA is not defined in any standard. The term GLA doesn’t appear in the BOMA Office, Tegova and PN-ISO 9836:1997 Standards, or in the newest PN-ISO 9836:2015-12 Standard. GLA is a term created by the real estate market (the term is defined only in the BOMA Retail Standard). GLA concerns the maximum area that can be leased. Clients often ask me to calculate GLA of the whole building. When I ask them to tell me what should be included in the GLA, almost every building owner mentions different elements. If we also take shopping centers into account, we’ll get a complete mix of scenarios: is something included or excluded from the GLA, do we measure to the wall axis or to the inner/outer edge of it?

GLA and the BOMA Standard

If I had to choose a term closest in meaning to the GLA, in the BOMA Office Standard (let’s focus on office buildings) it would be the RA (Rentable Area), which is the result of multiplying UA (Usable Area) and two factors, the floor (R/U Ratio) and building (R/O Ratio) ones. The above multiplication should be performed for each floor separately, and then everything should be added together. The RA sum (Rentable Area) is, in short, the maximum area that can be “squeezed out” of the building.

RA = UA x R/O Ratio x R/U Ratio

where:

RA – Rentable Area

UA – Usable Area 

R/O Ratio – building add-on factor

R/U Ratio – floor add-on factor

Another, more graphic, explanation is the following operation: from the IGA (Interior Gross Area) we subtract the MVP (Major Vertical Penetration – vertical passages in a building [shafts, elevators, staircases]), we subtract parking spaces (BOMA leases parking spaces individually), we subtract warehouses (BOMA leases warehouses separately, independently without multiplying them by add-on factors) and this way we get the initial PFA (Preliminary Floor Area), which for the whole building equals RA (Rentable Area).

PFA = IGA – MVP – parking area – warehouse area

PFA = RA

where:

PFA – Preliminary Floor Area 

IGA – Interior Gross Area 

MVP – Major Vertical Penetration – vertical passages in a building (shafts, elevators, staircases)

RA – Rentable Area

For individual floors those areas (calculated from two separate measurements) will not be equal, but for the building sum they will. It’s because of the building add-on factor, which is singular for the whole building and each floor is multiplied by it. Multiplying by add-on factors (floor and building) means that the Gross Leasable Area includes: technical rooms, BMS, security rooms, shared toilet rooms, shared kitchens, baby changing facilities, shared passageways, elevator lobbies, halls, rooms by the reception desk, building distribution board rooms, shared conference rooms, foyers, bike parkings inside the building, loading docks and so on. Tenant areas are also included. One more piece of information – in the BOMA Standard we don’t include balconies and terraces. The BOMA Standard doesn’t even take measuring them into account. They obviously can be measured for informational purposes on a Client’s request – we usually measure them in accordance with the PN-ISO 9836:1997 Standard.

  GLA and the Tegova 2012 Standard

The case here is much more complicated – perhaps uncertain would be a better way to put it. The Tegova Standard does not contain any information about add-on factors (floor and building). This is perhaps the most important matter, which many managers and owners don’t know of. They often ask to calculate add-on factors according to the Tegova Standard. It can be done, true, but it’s treated as a norm modification then, which should be mentioned in the measurement drawings and lease agreements with the tenants. I have been part of a conflict between a lessor and a tenant myself, when the first one had to pay back money to the tenant because he was charging rent for common areas calculated according to the Tegova Standard. I repeat – the Tegova Standard in its original form doesn’t contain add-on factors! Geodesists most often take the factor calculating methods from the BOMA Standard. It’s worth paying attention to the fact that areas that should be included in those factors according to the Tegova Standard are different from the areas in the BOMA Standard. If I were to calculate add-on factors according to the Tegova Standard, I wouldn’t include the building’s technical rooms (used by all tenants). It means that those “gross lease” areas calculated according to the Tegova Standard are always smaller than those in the BOMA Standard. Additionally, walls/columns with areas larger than 1m2 are excluded from the calculations in the Tegova Standard. When calculating factors, staircases and shafts shouldn’t be included – figuratively speaking it’s as if a building didn’t exist in those spaces, similar to parking lots and warehouses on the parking levels. Regarding vent stacks and shafts, those with areas over 1m2 are excluded. Hydrants and distribution boards used by only one tenant (particular floor) are included in the lease area (or the common area).

If I had to associate a term from the Tegova Standard with the GLA, I’d choose:

NFA (Net Floor Area) – also called

Effective Floor Area – also called

Rentable Floor Area

Net Floor Area (NFA) – the imaginary add-on factor – could be an equivalent of the GLA

Net Floor Area (NFA)

The usable area of each floor in a building based on the following calculations and assumptions:

1. each floor (on all levels) should be measured between inside surfaces of the surrounding exterior walls. NFA is an interior floor area (IFA) from which the inner construction area (ICA) was subtracted.
2. measurements should be performed on a determined height above the floor. If there are slopes in the room, a measurement method should be determined
3. the following areas should be excluded from the calculations of each measured floor:

• interior construction walls
• vent stacks, teletechnical shafts (with wiring), support columns (elements above 1m2 are usually excluded)
• staircases and elevator shafts
• machine rooms, fuel tanks, high and low voltage electrical distribution boards
• areas designed for permanent air conditioning, heating or cooling installation, “unusable” areas, i.e. taken up by canals. It doesn’t apply to areas occupied by installations installed by a tenant or used in the building only for particular purposes, i.e. computer network handling, production or processing.

When calculating this area in office buildings, the following should be excluded:

1. areas occupied by devices, services purposed for the use of the whole building, not just one tenant
2. public areas used not only by individual tenants in the building (the exceptions are additional common spaces created on particular floors and for particular tenants – they’re not excluded from the calculations)
3. building areas used by all tenants, i.e. entrance halls, loading ramps, terraces etc. In special cases those areas can be divided between the tenants.

GLA and the PN-ISO 9836:1997 and PN-ISO 9836:2015-12 Standards

Those standards say absolutely nothing about the GLA and the building and floor add-on factors. Those standards have a largely different approach to area measurement from BOMA or Tegova. Picture 1 shows the relations between the terms in the PN-ISO Standards (a little bit different in each of the two standards, but for the sake of better understanding of the topic it was simplified) in a graphic way. If I had to connect the term GLA with these Polish standards, I’d take the sum of the usable area and the movement area (pl.: powierzchnia ruchu). This way we’ll always get areas much smaller than the areas in the BOMA and Tegova Standards. Obviously, there’s nothing in the way of artificially creating an add-on factor calculating method. We can also include service areas (the ISO Standard perversely calls them technical areas) and usable areas in them. There is complete freedom here. Please note that there is no mention of the common area or areas for exclusive use (pl.: powierzchnie do wyłącznego korzystania) in those two standards (PN-ISO 9836:1997 and PN-ISO 9836:2015-12). While in the Tegova Standard there’s nothing about calculating factors, it’s clearly specified what is for exclusive use, what is for common use and what is excluded from the calculations. Based on this, we know what we need to include when calculating floor and building add-on factors, which has a clear impact on the GLA size.

GLA is understood as the net worth lease area + common areas (calculated/added by the factors).

Real life examples

A while ago when measuring a large shopping centre, I was asked to measure the GLA. I received measurement guidelines from the Commissioner, and I thought they were too modest right away. I proposed my guidelines for the object, after including the information gathered during the meetings with the Commissioner. Please note how different those GLA guidelines are from the ones described above:

• If a tenant neighbors an exterior wall (outdoors) we measure to the inside wall surface (pl.: lico ściany) from the tenant’s side (no drywall coverings, etc.) and reflect a constant value of 24cm to the outside.
• If a tenant neighbors an exterior wall (outdoors) we measure to the inside wall surface (pl.: lico ściany) from the tenant’s side (no drywall coverings, etc.) and reflect a constant value of 24cm to the outside.
• If a tenant neighbors a hallway which clients walk through, the whole wall is included in the tenant’s area, in cases of glass + aluminum profile walls we measure to the aluminum profile from the hallway side. In cases of brick walls, the whole wall is included in the tenant’s area as well.
• If a tenant neighbors e.g. a staircase (generally speaking, a load bearing wall) we measure to the inside wall surface on the tenant’s side, and then reflect 24cm to the outside of the tenant.
• If a tenant neighbors e.g. a technical room (not a load bearing wall), then after determining one predominant wall width between the tenants (let’s say it’s 12cm) we move 50% of this value to the outside.
• If a construction column is inside an exterior wall of a building, we extend the wall lines as if it wasn’t there.
•  Areas occupied by tables (restaurants) in halls are skipped and not measured.

Summary

• You should never settle accounts using the GLA with subcontractors (architects, geodesists), who want to account for their work in m2 of GLA building area – GLA is not referenced in standards, which only results in discrepancies and arguments between the sides.
• When using BOMA Office, you should settle accounts with a geodesist/architect using the IGA (Interior Gross Area)
• When using Tegova, you should settle accounts with a geodesist/architect using the IFA (Internal Floor Area)
• When using PN-ISO 9836:1997 and PN-ISO 9836:2015-12, you should settle accounts with a geodesist/architect using the sum of the total area, from which the outer construction was subtracted.

Copying the article or its parts without the author’s permission is forbidden.

Author: Adrian Hołub

Tłumaczenie: Julia Pająk

Contact

 Monika Hołub

Co-owner Polish Geodetic Group

szkolenia@geodezyjny.com

Tel.: +48 785 041 07

 Adrian Hołub

Co-owner Polish Geodetic Group

adrian.holub@geodezyjny.com

Tel.: +48 608 577 042

Measure it soon!