A building component is nested inside of a property’s hierarchy.
In its simplest form, a commercial real estate (CRE) property hierarchy is two-tiered: property as parent, with units as child.
However, this can be oversimplified.
Explanatory example of what a building component is
This is best address using an industrial park, comprising 3 buildings.
How would one answer the question – what is the height of the property?
An answer is dependent, firstly, on what the definition of property is.
The property is made of 3 buildings (with detail as follows):
- Building A is a mini-warehouse – all units are 4m in height
- Building B is a factory made up of components of varying heights
- Workshop of 4 meters to the eaves
- Storage section of 3 meters ceiling
- Mezannine office with a 2.5 meters ceiling
- Factory floor of 5 meters to the eaves
- Building C is a warehouse with two components
- The office component is 4 storeys tall, , with floors of 3 meters to the ceiling, of equally sized, modular units per floor
- The warehouse component is 12 meters tall
If the question is rephrased as “What is the height of the office building component in Building C”, the answer can be provided easily – 4 storeys.
Property hierarchy explained
Thus a component is located here *** in the hierarchy of a property
- property
- building (sometimes with different building names)
- building component ***
- floor
- unit (generally assigned unique identifiers)
- complex space
For more information, please see the article in Gmaven Frequently Asked Questions unpacking why commercial real estate is so different to residential property.
