New Moon Industries - Space Validation

The verification of physical space through the capture and maintenance of accurate spatial data.

NEW MOON INDUSTRIES' trained specialists can perform a spatial validation survey of your facility to determine the exact space you have available. This enables an organization to use space more efficiently and economically.

On average, most spatial validation surveys find 3% to 4% growth in rentable square feet. Building owners are able to increase their revenue not by raising the rent, but by charging for real space that was previously lost in outdated and inaccurate drawings or thought of as unchangeable. Verification of the space required for existing or proposed furniture and equipment can now be accurately and efficiently determined.

Typically, furniture and equipment have been ordered based on inaccurate knowledge of a tenant's space. This has been a large problem for many businesses and government agencies. Most facilities that have undergone a spatial validation study find the process pays for itself within the first few months followed by future revenue increases.

Space Measurement

A trained team accurately measures every element of the building and prepares Computer Aided Drawings to a preauthorized standard.

Linking to the Database

The resulting drawing is linked to an external database. Every space in the drawing is labeled with distinct tags that identify the various parameters to be tracked, such as the user of the space, the rentable square footage, etc. The tags are linked to the database so that any changes made to the tags in the CAD drawing will automatically occur in the database as well.

Testing

The drawings and the database then undergo an extensive series of tests to weed out any possible errors. The database is now ready to generate information reports.

Maintenance

The existence of the electronic drawing facilitates easy maintenance to reflect changes.

NEW MOON INDUSTRIES follows "The BOMA Standard", the most comprehensive method for the measurement and calculation of square footage inside commercial real estate. This standard, known formally as "ANSI/BOMA Z65.1-1996 Standard for Measuring Floor Area in Office Buildings", was formulated and approved in 1996 by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Building and Owners Management Association (BOMA).

The General Services Administration (GSA), the administrative services agency of the Federal Government, has adopted the BOMA standard for all of its buildings as well. The GSA created the Spatial Data Integrity Initiative (SDI) in 1995 to validate the space of all GSA-administered buildings.

In a case study presented in the January 2002 issue of Facilities Design & Management magazine, two GSA buildings in St. Louis, Missouri (located only two blocks apart), were recently measured for a space validation study under SDI.

The Robert A. Young Federal Building, built in 1930, is an office complex that’s gone through its share of remodels and additions in its seven-decade history. After the survey, the building grew by 10,649 square feet (1% increase) to 1,008,138 square feet.

The Eagleton Courthouse, built in 1997, is a 35-story facility that houses the US Court of Appeals, District Court, Bankruptcy Court, Tax Court and other court-related agencies. Unlike the RAY Building, it has not had any remodels or additions, yet it was still a good candidate for spatial validation. After the survey, the building grew by 289,791 square feet (33% increase) to 1,156,369 square feet.

As mentioned previously, most spatial validation surveys find 3% to 4% growth in rentable square feet. The unusually large growth in the Eagleton Courthouse isn't as uncommon as one might think. The reclassification of spaces such as mechanical areas, electrical areas, atriums, hallways and joint-use areas are a few examples of spaces that often are overlooked in calculating rentable space.

Even the small 1% growth of the RAY Building is not insignificant when considering the income that may be generated by more than 10,000 square feet of rentable space.