Don’t Overlook Parking When Negotiating Your Office Lease | Hunt KL Office

The common areas are supposed to be the areas of the building complex that are available to all tenants and their clients, visitors and customers for the convenient operation of the business in the building. The parking facilities whether a garage structure or surface parking lot are part of the common areas.

In most commercial leases there is a clause addressing parking, some more detailed than others. Office buildings typically use a ratio of a certain number of parking spaces for each 1,000 square feet of rentable area. When negotiating your office lease beyond cost making sure you have adequate parking allocated is a

matter of critical importance. The Landlord, as owner of a commercial building, when the building was completed and in to get a certificate of completion, would have been required to have normal and necessary parking spaces to allow the building to be utilized for its prospective use.

However, today with a trend of more densely populated office layouts by corporate space users many buildings unless recently constructed are finding their parking capacity to be strained particularly in well occupied buildings. In a market like Houston where public transportation is not heavily used, employees need spaces to park their cars.

Parking Is Often Negotiable

Subject to market conditions, typically the cost of parking is an area a Landlord is willing to make concessions in the lease negotiations. Depending on your bargaining power and with solid representation everything from parking allocation, designation of spaces and the cost of reserved and unassigned spaces are negotiable items.

Parking costs for employees can be a significant component to your total cost of occupancy. For example in downtown markets where the cost of parking is typically more expensive this line item can add several dollars per square foot to your annual lease costs. In suburban markets parking is often less expensive depending on the market and parking accommodations. The luxury of a covered parking structure to protect your employees from the elements is nice but typically comes with a cost, but with effective negotiations some of this cost can be mitigated.

For more questions, you can refer to www.huntkloffice.com