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How do you make net areas add up to the Gross Floor Area?

PatrickGSR94

Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2016
Messages
55
Location
Mississippi
In the jurisdictions where most of my firm's projects are located, building officials usually like to see our table of the various occupant load areas (assembly areas, business, kitchens, etc) add up to the total Gross Floor Area of the building.

IBC defines the gross floor area as the area measured to the inside face of the exterior walls. But say we have a restaurant with dining areas and waiting areas (assembly net areas), kitchen (gross), maybe an office (gross), and then restrooms and maybe a hallway, plus various walls separating the different net and gross areas.

If I draw my area boundary lines to the faces of walls in the dining area, what do I do with the interior walls themselves, plus the restrooms and hallways? Do I include an entry in my area table just for the walls? I will usually include one for the restrooms and hallway and just show those as normally unoccupied. But if there are other remotely located walls between net areas, how should I categorize those?
 
If the building includes areas determined by net floor area, the total will never add up to the building area.
 
And then you also have: Net Rentable, net useable and gross rentable using BOMA standards to center of glass (smiling)
What if the walls are not vertical, where do you measure to?
 
IBC defines the gross floor area as the area measured to the inside face of the exterior walls.

Seems simple to me ... total gross area is to the inside of the exterior walls, and then all the interior boundaries need to be calculated to the centerline of walls. Thd only things that might be listed in a table as "other" would be columns and shafts.
 
Gross building usually comes into play when there is a B occupancy. Our building official for state buildings says in a mixed use building that the B use is everything that isn't another use.
 
what do I do with the interior walls themselves, ignore them and do not include them in anything
plus the restrooms and hallways? they should be in the "gross floor area"
 
Full floor or partial floor tenant? Interior walls are only accounted for space efficiency calculations, except for tenant corridor walls?
Check lease language if a T.I. vs new building.
 
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