Pre-Design / Pre-Lease Services for Office Facilities

While considerations for a company’s future location focus on such criteria as neighborhood, building character and rental costs, it’s prudent to carefully re-evaluate your projected space needs.  As you look at available blocks of space a critical decision must first be made concerning your Company’s overall area requirements in order to avoid under or over estimating these needs, which could present obvious ramifications.  In today’s real estate market an oversized space would result in a loss expenditure of many thousands of dollars over the term of the lease.   We believe that this area analysis, performed during the Programming Stage, is no less important than any of the subsequent pre-lease or post-lease planning phases of your project.

As part of DGFA’s basic Pre-Design / Pre-Lease Services we include the following:

Program Analysis

• Obtain and analyze Client’s current requirements and space planning objectives.
• Review specific departmental needs for staffing, private office and/or open office needs, furniture and equipment needs, any unique requirements, departmental adjacencies, confidentiality concerns, etc. 
• Analyze Client’s current layout to define present advantages and/or identify any deficiencies.
• Review future expansion needs.
• Ultimately establish square foot area needs of each department and the overall facility.

Basic Evaluation of Proposed Leased Space

• Assist Client in the evaluation of lease premises under consideration.
• Perform preliminary survey of available leased space to confirm usable square foot area and determine how this relates to the rentable square foot area in terms of the building’s loss factors or add-ons.
• Assess base building elements, including lobbies, exit corridors, stairs, elevators and other exit routes, fire alarm systems, etc. relative to user convenience and to occupant health, safety and welfare.
• Assessment of infrastructure, including heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems, electric service, plumbing and sprinkler systems and all aspects of general construction and how these may impact on Client’s design, budget and overall comfort.
• Define any short comings which may ultimately require Client investment.

• Prepare design feasibility studies, in the form of schematic floor plans, to determine if Client’s facility can efficiently and comfortable fit within the leased premises. 
• Assist Client in the procurement of budget estimates relative to specific premises.

Decisions made during the pre-lease phase can significantly affect the project’s outcome and success and can have a substantial impact on future costs.   As well, this is the best time to define any building deficiencies; and this presents the best opportunity for negotiating with prospective landlords.  These pre-lease services can also provide you with the information needed to do a comparative analysis when multiple sites are under consideration.