How Much Office Space Do I Need Per Person?

Trying to figure out how much office space you need per person is not an exact science.  There is a lot of inaccurate info out there so we have created a number of posts on office space needs educate everyone.  There are a number of factors that come into play such as your parking needs, office layout (open space vs hard-wall offices), etc.  Landlords typically limit the number of parking spaces to 3 to 4 per 1000 sf, which means you would have to lease 250 to 333 sf per person………. which is overkill for most Tenants.  These days more and more tech and software companies are creating open office layouts which allow them to squeeze more people into the space at a ratio of 150 to 200 sf per person.

So as you can see Landlords requirements and Tenant needs differ!  So what do you do?

• Plan very carefully when determining how much office space you need.  Figure out early on who will need offices and who won’t.  Try using our office space calculator as a start.
• Consider hiring an architect to help you plan your office space layout.  This can save you thousands later on by ensuring you don’t lease too little or too much space.
• As best as you can try to estimate your current and future headcount.
• If your parking needs will be high then only consider office buildings that have high parking ratios or where it’s obvious that parking will not be an issue.
• If your planning to primarily have an open office layout then estimate to need 150 to 200 sf per person.  This ratio includes everything.
• If your going to have a lot of offices then figure 175 to 225 sf per person.

The larger you get the more difficult it is to just pick up and move in 30 days or less.  Because of that it’s important to factor in anticipated growth so you can avoid inconvenient & costly moves later on.