Engleza

Office Space

Bell & Bell is a consulting and project management firm. It has 400 employees and occupies  3 floors of an office building (built circa 1977) in the downtown of a major city. The office is located near subway stations and major bus routes. There are many amenities in the area including restaurants, shops, banks, and parking garages. Bell & Bell has occupied space in the building since 1990, when it signed a 25 year lease at an annual rate of $100,000. The office space has capacity for 275-300 workers. A large number of Bell employees work offsite at their clients’ offices. On average, 40% of the workers work offsite. All of the staff that works on-site has their own designated office or desk.
Senior management level and up all have offices and/or desks regardless of whether or not they work regularly on-site. Those who do not have assigned seats use available desks, but there is no system for tracking which desks are vacant. Business is booming for Bell & Bell. It forecasts that in the next two years they will add approximately 100 new staff. Even with all the off-site workers, this growth will put the office beyond maximum capacity. Additionally, the building is old and needs to be modernized. The partners of Bell & Bell have begun to search for a new location. They have found space in a newly built office tower south of downtown. The area is in a part of town that had become rundown and unpopular. Developers have recently built 2 twenty-story office towers. The towers are currently 65% rented. They are approximately 5 miles away from the downtown. The site is accessible by public transportation, like their current location, and has a parking garage below each tower. However, because this is an underdeveloped area, there are very few restaurants, shops, or other amenities easily found in the area. There are some signs of revitalization though, as a bank and 2 new restaurants recently opened. Additionally, there are rumours that a shopping mall is planned for a vacant parcel of land nearby. Bell & Bell is interested in renting 3 floors in one of these office buildings. The office space would have a capacity for approximately 500 workers. The annual rent would be $400,000. The cost to customize the space is approximately $200,000. The owners of the building where Bell & Bell currently has its offices have made an offer to keep the company in the building. They have offered to give Bell an additional floor which would increase capacity to approximately 425 workers and pay all costs to modernize/renovate this new floor and one of the three existing floors. Bell would have to pay to renovate the other two floors at an estimated cost of $300,000. The new rental rate would be $250,000 per year.

As part of the growth planning board, you have been asked by the president of Bell & Bell to write a memo detailing the pros and cons of the two offices location options and make a recommendation as to what action to take. Which building should house the company? Why is one building site better than another? Support your recommendation with specific details from the reading.