SpaceMatch Office shortlist Office Match · USD 79
You asked for 18 desks. You need 9 desks and three meeting rooms.
Four spaces matched to how the team actually uses an office, rather than to headcount.
Your brief asks for a desk per person. Your own attendance data shows a peak of eleven people on a Wednesday and a median of seven, and the complaint in your notes is that people cannot find anywhere to take a call. You are about to pay for nine desks nobody will sit at and still not solve the actual problem.
Sized at eleven desks plus three call rooms and one meeting room, your requirement drops from about 2,400 square feet to about 1,650, which brings two spaces into budget that were previously out of it. One of them is the best fit on this list.
Requirement
What the office is actually for
Taken from your six months of door-badge data and the three complaints that appear in your own team survey. Headcount is the least useful number in this section.
| What you asked for | What the evidence says | Revised |
|---|---|---|
| 18 desks | Peak 11, median 7. Nobody comes in on Friday | 11 desks |
| One meeting room | Booked 94 percent of Wednesdays, empty Mondays | One, plus overflow |
| No call rooms mentioned | The top complaint in your survey, by a distance | Three call rooms |
| Kitchen | Used all day. The de facto meeting space | Keep, make it bigger |
| Parking for 6 | Four people drive | Four |
| Central location | Nine of eighteen commute by train | Within 12 min of the station |
| Room to grow to 30 | Hiring plan says 24 by end of 2027 | Break clause, not floor space |
The last row is the expensive one. Paying for growth space from January costs about USD 18,000 a year for space that is empty until 2028. A three year lease with a break at 24 months costs nothing and solves the same problem.
Shortlist
Four spaces, on operational fit
| Size | Call rooms | To station | Annual | Break | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calder Works, unit 3 | 1,700 sq ft | 3 built in | 8 min | USD 47,600 | 24 months |
| Wellington House, 2nd | 1,620 sq ft | None, could build 2 | 5 min | USD 52,900 | 36 months |
| The Tannery | 2,450 sq ft | 1 | 14 min | USD 61,200 | None |
| Bond Court, suite B | 1,480 sq ft | 2 | 3 min | USD 55,400 | 12 months |
The Tannery is the space you had shortlisted. It is the largest, has one call room, no break clause and is the furthest from the station. It fits the original brief and fails the revised one on every line.
Calder Works, USD 47,600
Three call rooms already built, right size for eleven desks and a meeting room, eight minutes from the station, break at 24 months. Cheapest of the four and the only one that solves the call room complaint on day one.
Bond Court, USD 55,400
Three minutes from the platform, which matters for nine train commuters, and a 12 month break. Tighter at 1,480 square feet and two call rooms rather than three.
The Tannery, USD 61,200
Eight hundred square feet you do not need, at USD 13,600 a year more than Calder Works, with no break clause and the wrong internal layout.
Viewing
What to check in the room
Go on a Wednesday at 10:30, when a building is at its busiest. An empty office at 16:00 on a Friday tells you nothing.
- Stand in a call room with the door shut. Can you hear the main floor?
- Check the mobile signal in every call room, on two networks
- Count the power sockets against eleven desks and two screens each
- Ask what the actual internet line is, not what the brochure says
- Look at the toilets and the kitchen at 12:45
- Ask who else is in the building and what they do at 09:00
- Check the heating and cooling zones. One thermostat for 1,700 square feet is an argument every week
- Ask what the service charge was three years ago, not what it is now
| Question for the agent or landlord | Why |
|---|---|
| Is the service charge capped, and what does it cover? | The most common surprise in a small office lease |
| Is the break clause mutual or landlord only? | A landlord-only break is not flexibility |
| What is the dilapidations position at the end? | Can be a five figure number nobody budgeted |
| Is there a rent free period, and how long? | Typically two to four months at this size |
| Who pays for fitting out the call rooms? | Only relevant at Wellington House |
| What is the earliest occupation date? | You need January, and two of these need a fit out |