The International Property Measurement Standards Coalition, a global alliance of real estate groups, intends to unveil a new system next month for measuring square footage at office buildings worldwide. The system would not be mandatory, and could reduce the size of buildings and therefore lessen their value.
New York City real estate executives, however, said it is unlikely that building owners will voluntarily follow the new standards if it could result in losing money.
“It’s an important enough market that they can make their own rules,” Mark Weiss, vice chair of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, told the Wall Street Journal.
Most major city landlords have increased loss factors over several years, as TRD reported. Tishman Speyer’s MetLife Building at 200 Park Avenue is currently measured to be 3 million square feet, but 35 years ago, when it was the Pan Am Building, it was measured as 2.4 million square feet. [WSJ] — Mark Maurer