Office Space

Consider Parking Options When Leasing Commercial Office Space

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Office SpaceMany business owners are often focused on the office space itself when leasing a commercial office for their company. Although the interior of the office is quite important, it is vital to not overlook parking options when leasing office space. This is especially relevant in cities and largely populated areas where having parking on-site is an absolute necessity.

Inquire About Parking Right Away

When you are interested in a particular office space and are at the point of seriously considering leasing the chosen location, make sure you inquire about parking options right away, especially if parking is a must for you. This is a lease term which can often make or break a leasing commitment and force you to look elsewhere, especially if parking is what you want but not what you will receive if you lease that particular office space.

Find Out Whether Parking is Open or Reserved

Leasing will either be open or reserved in nature. With an open parking arrangement, you will have access to parking at a garage or lot but not receive designated spots, which means if the lot fills up, you are out of luck. With a reserved parking situation, you will have set office space parking and know that when you pull into your office parking lot, your parking spot will be available. This is often an important component for office space tenants to consider.

Ask About Client Parking Options

Even if you know that you will have office space parking for both you and your employees, you may not have parking spots available for your clients. It’s important to ask about this issue, and then determine if client parking is a necessity or not. Client parking is often an attractive feature as many customers and clients like to deal with businesses which offer ease of access to their facilities.

Make Sure Parking Terms are Included Within the Leasedeerfield

Even though you may have discussed parking terms and agreed that these features will be included with your tenancy, you must put it into writing and ensure that the lease contains the term related to parking. Rather than have a statement to the effect of “parking is included,” you should insert information related to how many parking spaces are included, whether parking is reserved or open, if clients may have access to parking spots while doing business with your company and other specific parking terms. Once the parking terms are included within the lease, you can rest assured that parking spaces will be available to you during your commercial office space tenancy.

Parking may not be a must-have inclusion for certain office space tenants. However, for others, having the access to parking for both employees and clients is a necessity which simply cannot be omitted from an office space tenancy. So long as you determine your parking needs, inquire about parking options and ensure that you will have parking spaces available to you, your company and clients, plus include such terms within the lease, your office space lease will consist of the pertinent items you need to do business efficiently.

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Office Leasing: Understanding Rentable vs. Usable Square Footage

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photographer-349921_1280When you lease commercial property to be used as office space, your future landlord will mention terms such as rentable square footage and useable square footage when speaking about the rental cost. As opposed to having a single rent figure, these square footage calculations are used to determine just how much you’ll pay for your office space.

In the same discussion, common area costs will come up as well. Commercial tenants not only have to pay for the space that they use alone but also share the cost for maintaining the common areas with other tenants. The calculations may be a bit intimidating at first, however, with the right background information and a good tenant representative by your side, you’ll be able to figure out the details in no time.

What is Useable Square Footage?

When you want to calculate useable square footage, this will be the figure relating to the amount of space which you actively use. For example, your useable square footage is the square footage of your single office within an office building, if you lease an office space of this type.

What is Rentable Square Footage?

Rentable square footage is the amount of space which will include your office but also the restrooms, closets and other areas.

What is the Common Area Factor?Office Lease Renewal

The common area factor is the amount of space which is shared by all office space tenants. This will include bathrooms, cleaning closets, lobbies, copy rooms and other shared sections of the office building. There are two main types of common areas: floor common area and building common area. The floor common area is the amount of tenant common areas which are located on your floor while the building common area is the part which everyone within the building shares. These two figures are added up to equal the total common area factor.

How Do These All Add Up?

Calculating the square footage figures can be difficult for new office space tenants but tenant representatives are well-versed in these types of calculations and will gladly help you to calculate the figures with ease. The basic calculation is rentable square footage = useable square footage x (1 + add-on %). The add-on percentage can be calculated this way: rentable square footage/useable square footage – 1. The add-on percentage is sometimes substituted with a common area factor percentage and you can determine which percentage your prospective landlord uses simply by inquiring with them.

These factors show that there is much more to commercial office space rent than just a flat figure. There are distinct calculations which go into determining commercial office space rent and these figures will dictate how much you pay for an office space you use as well as common areas which you share with other tenants. Understanding these figures is much easier to do when you have a tenant representative along with you for any and all negotiations. Your tenant representative will explain these factors in layperson terms and help you out with any questions which you may have along the way.

Office Space: What You Should Know About Relocation Provisions In Leases

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The office lease is one which contains many terms. Some are in there for the benefit of the landlord while others may help out the tenant in one way or another. One which falls within the former category is the relocation provisions term. This is sometimes found in a commercial office space lease and allows the landlord to relocate the office space tenant to another office space location within the building or office park should the landlord need to, or want to, accommodate a new tenant looking for larger office space. When this does occur, although not that often, it usually involves a situation where a company wants to lease a larger office space, such as an entire floor of an office building, and there is already a smaller company in place, which ultimately doesn’t need or use all of the space.

Why The Landlord Wants This Lease Term Included

A commercial landlord likes to have this type of term included within the lease because it is a safeguard for them, and a monetary one at that, should an interested party want to lease a larger office space which could be available should the landlord move a current tenant into a different space. This type of lease term enables the landlord to rent out more of their office space and gain  more income simply from doing so.

Although this is a standard lease term, it is one which not all landlords are able to have included due to some resistance from office space tenants at the time of the lease signing. Should the landlord be successful in having the office space tenant agree to this term, the landlord will be responsible for all costs associated with the tenant relocation should the landlord opt to put this lease term into play.

Why The Tenant Doesn’t Want This Lease Term Included

Frequently, an office space tenant will not want this type of lease term included within their commercial office space lease. Those who lease office space, usually choose their office space of choice due to its location, size, view and more. After all, why would the tenant want to be moved around after they carefully select their office space? However, during the negotiations and prior to signing the lease, this term often comes up in conversation and has to be decided upon at that point.

How an Office Tenant Can Have This Term ExcludedOffice Space

Most commercial tenants would want this term excluded. Therefore, it’s important to review the lease terms thoroughly to make sure relocation provisions are not included or, if they are, this can be discussed during lease negotiations with the landlord prior to signing the lease. By removing the relocation provisions term from the lease, you will ensure that you will not have to move to another spot during the lease, simply because the landlord wants to make more money off of an additional tenant who may want to occupy your space. Should the landlord not agree to omitting the relocation provisions term, just be sure that it is as fair to you, the tenant, as possible and that you know what could happen in the future should the relocation provisions term be put into play.

What Are Your Signage Options When Signing Your Office Lease

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When you lease or buy commercial office space, you’ll want to advertise your presence at the location in one way or another. When you buy the office space, you will usually have countless options as to signs on and around the premises. However, if you lease commercial office space, there may be restrictions in place concerning placement of signs or even restrictions stating that no signs are allowed and you are basically a hidden entity from those passing by. This is why it’s important to ask about signage options, requirements and restrictions before you sign the lease.

Why Is Signage Important?

First and foremost, you want the proper signage outside of the leased commercial office space advertising your business so customers can find you, whether they are current customers or prospective ones. When you have the proper signage, your customer base will improve as will your business’ income. This type of advertisement is the easiest way to draw people in and a cost-efficient method as well.

Why Might Landlords Restrict the Use of Signs?

There are a few different reasons why landlords may restrict the use of signs by their commercial tenants. First, they may not have the room to allow all tenants to put up signs, especially if there are many office space tenants within the building. Also, there may be city restrictions and zoning laws regarding signage, which wouldn’t be the landlord’s fault but simply something which prevents the tenant from advertising at the building. In addition, the landlord may not want a bunch of signs all over the building and simply restrict signage for that purpose alone. These are some of the more common reasons why landlords don’t want signs on their property.

How Does the Tenant Go About Getting Their Sign Up and Presence Known?

The best way to get your sign posted, whether it is a stand-alone sign only promoting your business or your name on a large sign alongside all of the other office tenants within the building, is to negotiate properly with the landlord during the lease negotiations. Some landlords will be flexible with regard to signage and, in this case, getting your sign posted is not a big deal. However, for other landlords who may be more hesitant to allow signs, you’re going to want to negotiate this factor prior to signing the lease.

If the landlord refuses to allow you to put up a stand-alone sign, see if they would agree to an addition to a sign already posted which has other office space tenants listed on it. This shouldn’t make or break the lease deal, however, if it is that important to you as a tenant, which it should be, try to work with the landlord to get some sort of signage posted. After all, if people don’t know where you are located or new customers can’t come across your business with ease, this will hurt you as a business owner. Negotiation is key so try to work with the landlord to secure some type of signage along with your commercial office space lease.

Office Space

Office Space Tenants Often Pay More Than Just Rent

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Office SpaceWhen business owners lease commercial office space, there is often more to consider in the way of expenses than just rent. One would like to think that a rent payment each month or year would cover all of the tenant’s costs, but this is usually not the case. Most office space tenants will have to pay an additional rent, such as operating expenses, under the lease terms. Here are some things which all commercial office space tenants must keep in mind when signing a new office space lease.

Business Owners Are Responsible for Rent Plus Operating Expenses

In addition to paying the set rent for the office space, commercial tenants will also pay operating expenses. These are items which the landlord must pay out in order to keep the building running. Some of these costs may include taxes, insurance, utilities, common area maintenance and more. Since these can be quite costly, it only makes sense to have the tenant share in some of the financial responsibility for operating features which they make use of as well.

The Costs Will Be Stated in the Lease

These operating costs may be few or many in number, depending on the individual commercial office, landlord, location and added features of the building itself. In order to have the right knowledge regarding what the tenant is responsible for and how much these items may cost on a monthly or annual basis, the operating expenses must be listed in the lease. The lease must be very detailed regarding what the tenant is required to pay, what the landlord will pay and how and when these payments are due.

Operating Expenses May Fluctuate Throughout the Lease Term

It would be nice if there were concrete numbers with regard to operating expenses, however, many times these operating expenses will fluctuate. In fact, most operating expenses will vary in amount but there is usually an average number for which the tenant can calculate approximately how much they will be paying in addition to the base rental payment. For most office space tenants, they will have to pay a portion of the operating expenses based on the amount of tenants in the office building, if more than a single tenant setting, and what the landlord requests in the lease. Although the portion of the operating expenses which the tenant needs to pay will be a set percentage, the cost of the operating expenses will still fluctuate.

The Best Way to Understand Operating Expenses Is With a Tenant Representative’s Help

Operating expenses can be a bit difficult to understand, especially if one is new to the commercial office space leasing arrangement. In order to have a good grasp as to what these operating expenses are and how much you will need to pay, having a tenant representative by your side during negotiations, lease signing and beyond will help. The tenant representative will thoroughly examine the operating expense clause and provide you with detailed information on what you will need to pay in addition to your commercial office space rent.