Tricks Of The Trade: Hello, Columbus!

By James C. Elledge, IFMA Fellow, CFM, FMA, RPA, RIAQM
Published in the March 2008 issue of Today’s Facility Manager

Q The Facilities Management Division for the City of Columbus, OH, isseeking data on operational costs per square foot in office buildings.How would we determine operational costs that incorporate custodial,trades, energy, etc.?

Kelley Brickey
Facilities Management Division
City of Columbus, OH

A The best resource to use for getting the type of data you areseeking is the Experience Exchange Report (EER) from BOMAInternational. The organization has several versions available;personally, I would recommend the CD-ROM version over the moretraditional formats because of its great search properties. The priceis $215 (members) or $390 (non-members).

This format will allow you to take advantage of some special interactive features. Some of the functions include the following:

  • Export EER data to PDF or Excel reports to perform quick and easy data manipulation;
  • Select special customized reports from 18 custom modules;
  • View data based on popular EER modules including: Medical Office Buildings, Class A, B, or C, and type of ownership; and
  • Generate reports for specific income and expense line items for cross market comparison.

Loadedwith eight income and 12 expense line item categories and 65 detailedsubcategories for U.S. and Canadian cities, the CD-ROM version of theEER will allow you to run queries based on ranges that you actuallyselect. Breakdowns for private and government, downtown and suburban,and building size can be sorted by zip code to generate up to fourdifferent report types. Pricing and order details are available fromthe BOMA Store at www.boma.org.

Also, theInstitute of Real Estate Management (IREM) offers its 2006Income/Expense Analysis: Office Buildings. Complete details areavailable online from the publications section of the IREM Web sitelocated at www.irem.org.

Elledge,facility/office services manager for Dallas, TX-based Summit AllianceCompanies, is the recipient of the Distinguished Author Award from theInternational Facility Management Association (IFMA), is an IFMA Fellow, and isa member of TFM’sEditorial Advisory Board. All questions have been submitted via the “Ask TheExpert” portion of the magazine’s Web site. To pose a question, visit this link.