The Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International has launched a new measurement standard to help property managers more accurately measure office buildings.

The new guide, Office Buildings: Standard Methods of Measurement and Calculating Rentable Area (2010), provides improvements and changes to the Standard Method for Measuring Floor Area in Office Buildings, the previous standard from BOMA released in 1996.

The 2010 publication uses a new interactive and downloadable format. “This standard will serve as an indispensible tool in the marketplace for property managers, architects, contractors, appraisers and other parties who measure space,” said BOMA International Chair James Peck, who is also senior director of asset services for brokerage CB Richard Ellis.

“We have also brought the standard into the digital age by including hyperlinks to definitions and full color illustrations in the PDF document, eliminating ambiguity and making it easier than ever to understand.”


The standard includes a step-by-step measurement explanation, and boundary line definitions. Users can zoom in on full color illustrations to get a closer look at how classes of space transition.

In addition to Office Buildings: Standard Methods of Measurement and Calculating Rentable Area (2010), the BOMA suite of measurement standards also includes Gross Areas of a Building: Methods of Measurement and Industrial Floor Measurement Standard. Later this year, BOMA will release two more standards, one for use in multi-residential buildings and one for retail spaces.