How do I estimate the cost of utilities for a 2500 sqft office?
I'm putting together a business plan for a startup, and I need to provide an estimate for utility costs. For my plan, this is an office of 12 employees with an average of 2 CPU's per workstation. Plus there will be a small server room with a half dozen servers plus lighting and kitchen. This is in the Chicago market.
How do I find out how much this will cost? Heat/air + electricity for a 2500 sqft office?
Edit: I do not have a particular property in mind. I'm just doing the business plan to try to secure funding.
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Ask the utility company and the landlord of the building. Or a commercial real estate broker. You can also just use a rough estimate of 5% to 15% cost of overhead on top of a person's salary. It's a wide range but should be usable. (that includes rent as well - not just utilities). Unless you're running MRI machines or radar or something, the utilities are not going to make or break you - the rent and salaries are the big factors. You're at a 2nd or 3rd order magnitude expense when looking at utilities. – Tim J 12 years ago
2 Answers
That depends where you are located and age of HVAC equipment. In addition, many office leases include HVAC during business hours, but you do pay other utilities. General rule is $2 per square foot per year EXCLUDING HVAC. I never paid tipple-net, but utilities with HVAC on 2500 would like run you $1K per month excluding maintenance on HVAC.
If you have a particular property in mind, ask the current/previous occupants to give you info on what they paid.
