Confirm what the square footage describes
BOMA’s office standard is designed to calculate rentable area. Request the quoted measurement basis, applicable standard and plan rather than assuming the advertised area equals the space available for desks.
Build a comparison with rentable area for rent calculations and a separate layout capacity assessment. Record meeting rooms, circulation, storage and quiet work needs. Avoid applying an assumed common-area factor to a building when the relevant measurement has not been supplied.
Make recurring costs comparable
Put base rent and additional rent in separate columns for a net quote. For a gross quote, document which items are included before adding further charges. Track parking, connectivity and any separately billed services without assuming they are the same in both buildings.
Check whether the quoted rate applies to every lease year. A first-year rate is not a five-year average. Record estimated operating charges with their budget year and mark any reconciliation or adjustment mechanism for document review.
Hypothetical example: rate versus footprint
Office A is a hypothetical 2,000-square-foot suite at $22 base rent plus $14 additional rent per square foot annually. Its modelled rent subtotal is $72,000 a year, or $6,000 a month. Office B is 1,800 square feet at $25 plus $13, producing $68,400 a year, or $5,700 a month.
B has the higher base rate but the smaller rent subtotal. That advantage matters only if its layout meets the same requirements. The numbers are illustrative and exclude parking, tax, utilities outside the quote, incentives and improvements. They are not local market averages.
Where official sector history exists
The approved source contains separate building-type series for Canada, Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, Toronto, Montréal, Calgary and Vancouver, as well as the Atlantic and Prairie regions. Other listed city series combine building types. Coverage is a property of the source, not a missing value to estimate.
For a market without a sector-specific city series, view its all-building history and independently dated sector evidence. Keep the measures separate; a provincial industrial index cannot be relabelled as an Edmonton industrial index.
Sources and scope.
- BOMA International — Floor Measurement Standards ↗
- Statistics Canada — Survey of Commercial Rents reporting guide ↗
- Statistics Canada — Commercial rents services price index, monthly, table 18-10-0255-01 ↗
Sources checked 12 October 2026. Numerical examples are hypothetical; figures from the official index carry their published source period.