IFMA and BOMA to Work Together on Building Measurement Definitions

On April 12, 2005, the Houston-based International Facility Management Association (IFMA) and the Washington, D.C.-based Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) Intl. announced an agreement to work together to develop common definitions for floor area measurements. The resulting definitions will be used in standards supported by each organization and clarify building measurement and industry comparisons based on floor area measurements.A “Working Group” of key members from both IFMA and BOMA have been appointed to facilitate this work. The group will identify important stakeholders, professionals with extensive background and experience in floor measurement issues. “Stakeholders should be able to measure an area once and use this measurement in either standard, regardless of how each standard uses that measurement,” explains Lynne Blair, IFMA chair of the Working Group and president of LY Blair & Associates, Ottawa. “This is why we need to agree on definitions. We need to put a name onto each measurement that will enable our stakeholders to measure the same thing in the same way.”The definitions along with the commentaries that will elaborate on the floor area measurement process, must:Be easily and quickly understood by non-technical readers.Be fair to users.Be easy to use.“Both organizations recognize that gaining agreement on floor measurement definitions will help everyone who uses those standards,” says Kent Gibson, BOMA’s co-chair of the Working Group and vice president of Zion Securities Corp., Salt Lake City. “The number of businesses in the real estate industry that use these standards is immense, number in the tens of thousands. I am sure that the Working Group will make progress in streamlining floor measurement definitions to benefit the users of the standards.”To find out more visit the IFMA (www.ifma.org) and BOMA (www.boma.org) websites.