Sizing Office Space: Helping Tenants Get It Right

Tenants almost always size their space using rules of thumb. Landlords who can help them size it correctly win deals that stick and avoid the rework that damages tenant relationships.

Why the common answer is the wrong answer

Search online and you will find a simple answer: around 150 to 200 square feet per employee. That number is repeated confidently across broker websites and tenant guides.

The problem is that it is a portfolio average across all industries, company sizes, work styles, and time periods. It reflects what companies used to lease, not what they actually need. Applied to a specific business making a specific decision today, it is off by a significant margin, in either direction.

The right answer depends on how the company works.

The variables that actually matter

Headcount and how it is counted

"Employee" is ambiguous. A company with 100 full-time employees but an additional 50 contractors, interns, and rotating external consultants behaves like a 150-person company from a space perspective. Counting only FTEs underestimates the real occupancy.

Work mode

A company with mandatory five-day in-office policy needs dedicated seating for everyone. A company with three-day hybrid and shared desking needs roughly 60-70 percent of that. A fully remote-first company with occasional in-office days needs less still. The same headcount can need half as much space or twice as much, depending entirely on how the team works.

Function mix

Engineering teams cluster at desks. Sales teams need phone booths and call rooms. Creative teams need collaboration spaces and whiteboards. Legal and finance teams need privacy. Customer-facing teams need reception and meeting capacity. The same total headcount produces very different space programs depending on which functions live in the office.

Meeting density

Some organizations run on meetings. Some do not. A company that averages six hours of meetings per employee per week needs three to four times the conference capacity of a company that averages two hours. Conference room shortages are the single most common complaint in corporate workplace surveys.

Culture and experience

If the office is a retention and recruiting tool, the per-person square footage calculation is wrong from the start. The question is not "how do we fit people," it is "what experience do we need to deliver." These generate different answers.

A better framework

Instead of starting with a per-employee number, start with a program. A good program accounts for:

• Work points. Desks, focus rooms, and alternate work settings. Count by role, not by headcount.
• Meeting capacity. Conference rooms of various sizes, phone booths, informal collaboration areas. Match to actual meeting data if available.
• Shared services. Reception, copy and print, pantry, restrooms, storage, mailroom, IT closets. Often under-sized in early planning.
• Amenities. Cafeteria, game room, wellness rooms, quiet zones. Driven by retention strategy.
• Operations. Mechanical and electrical space. Landlord-provided or tenant-provided depending on the building.
• Circulation. Corridors, lobbies, and the space that connects everything. This is usually 25-35 percent of the floor plate and cannot be avoided.

When summed up, this program produces a defensible square footage number. It will often be different from the rule-of-thumb answer, sometimes significantly.

Why testfits matter before signing

The program is theoretical. The actual space is physical. The question of whether the program fits into a specific floor plate can only be answered by drawing it.

This is what a testfit does. Given a candidate space and a program, it confirms whether the plan fits, where it is tight, and what compromises are required. A good testfit is the difference between signing a lease that works and signing one that almost works.

Most landlords offer a testfit as part of the leasing process. The better the testfit is based on actual existing conditions, the more it helps close the deal. A testfit that holds up during CDs protects the deal, the TI budget, and the tenant relationship. A testfit based on generic assumptions creates problems that surface after the lease is signed.

Growth and flexibility

Space needs change. A good plan accounts for this by either sizing slightly above current needs (which costs money for space that will not be used immediately) or by building in flexibility (expansion options, right of first refusal on adjacent space, sublease rights, or modular configurations that can absorb growth without reconfiguration).

The wrong answer is to size exactly to today's headcount. The space will be underbuilt within eighteen months.

Final thought

The real office space question is not "how much" but "configured how, for which work."

Per-employee rules of thumb answer the wrong question. Programs and testfits answer the right one.