Commercial space feels deceptively Office space rental agency simple until you sit down with a floor plan and a budget. I’ve watched teams swing from too-cramped to too-empty in a single lease cycle, and the cost shows up in productivity, turnover, and cash flow. If you’re weighing offices for rent in London, Ontario or nearby markets like St. Thomas, Sarnia, and Stratford, a clear, defensible square footage target saves you time and money. This guide lays out a practical calculator you can run on a napkin or in a spreadsheet, then refines it with local leasing realities.
Start with the way you actually work
Space planning starts with people, not with a rule of thumb. Count how many people need a seat on a typical Tuesday at 10 a.m., not on your largest all-hands. If you run a hybrid policy, don’t assume your future compliance matches your policy on paper. Track badge swipes, desk bookings, or even coffee orders for two or three weeks to see real occupancy. In London office markets, I regularly see companies expecting 50 percent attendance but averaging closer to 65 to 70 percent.
Then consider role types. Engineers and analysts often need heads-down zones, planners need wall space and project tables, sales prefers buzz and proximity to small meeting rooms. Executive assistants anchor near leaders, while field staff may only need touchdown benches. These habits drive workstation size and the mix of meeting and collaboration areas. An office space rental agency can sketch test fits, but you’ll get better results if you arrive with this operational map.
A practical calculator you can trust
Below is a simple framework you can adapt. It isn’t a rigid template, it’s a toolkit. You’ll feed in headcounts and workstyles, and it outputs a usable range. Tweak variables to match your team.
Step one, define seat types and assign square footage per seat. Use net usable numbers for now.
- Focus desks: 45 to 65 sq ft per seat for compact benching, 70 to 90 sq ft for more spacious desks with storage. I use 60 to 75 sq ft for most knowledge workers. Private offices: 100 to 140 sq ft for managers, 140 to 180 sq ft for executives. If you’re considering luxury office leasing in London with larger furniture and guest seating, lean high. Collaboration seats: 20 to 30 sq ft per person for open lounge areas; 25 to 35 sq ft per person for cafe-style hotelling seats. Meeting rooms: 25 to 30 sq ft per person seated. A 6-person room often lands around 150 to 180 sq ft. A 12-person boardroom runs 300 to 360 sq ft. Specialty rooms: phone booths (15 to 25 sq ft each), wellness rooms (60 to 90 sq ft), mothers’ rooms (70 to 100 sq ft), IT lab or server alcove (varies, but 80 to 150 sq ft for a small team), storage (calculate 0.5 to 1.5 sq ft per employee, adjust by industry).
Step two, calculate seats you truly need. For hybrid teams, use peak expected attendance, not total headcount. If you have 60 staff with a 3-day hybrid schedule and your busiest day lately hits 42 on site, plan for 45 to 48 seats, not 60.
Step three, add shared space. As a baseline, allocate 20 to 35 percent of your usable area for circulation and shared amenities such office space for lease london ontario thefocalpointgroup.com as halls, pantries, and informal nooks. Many modern layouts push circulation into collaboration zones, which can keep this ratio efficient.
Step four, convert to rentable area. Most leases in London and the surrounding markets use a load factor to turn usable square feet into rentable square feet. Typical load factors run 10 to 20 percent, depending on the building’s corridors, lobbies, and shared washrooms. Older buildings can be leaner, new class A towers often sit higher. Your leasing broker or office space provider in London, St. Thomas, Sarnia, and Stratford, Ontario can confirm the building factor. Rent and operating costs are charged on rentable area, so this step matters.
Here’s how those pieces fit together in a live example.
A marketing firm with 38 employees adopts a 3-day hybrid. Observed peak on-site is 28, plus two execs who insist on private offices, and one bookkeeper who needs quiet and a closing door twice per week. Plan for 26 open desks at 70 sq ft, two manager offices at 120 sq ft, one small private room at 90 sq ft used as a part-time office and as a focused workspace for anyone who books it. Meeting needs: one 10-person room at 300 sq ft, two 6-person rooms at 160 sq ft each, and three phone booths at 18 sq ft each. Add a cafe with 12 seats at 30 sq ft per seat, plus a copy/print area at 80 sq ft and a wellness room at 70 sq ft. Storage is modest, 30 sq ft. Circulation and incidental space target: 28 percent.
Crunch it:
- 26 open desks at 70 = 1,820 sq ft 2 offices at 120 = 240 sq ft 1 small private room = 90 sq ft 1 room for 10 = 300 sq ft 2 rooms for 6 = 320 sq ft 3 phone booths = 54 sq ft Cafe seats 12 at 30 = 360 sq ft Print/copy = 80 sq ft Wellness = 70 sq ft Storage = 30 sq ft Subtotal usable, before circulation: 3,364 sq ft Add 28 percent circulation and shared: 942 sq ft Usable total: about 4,306 sq ft
If your building has a 15 percent load factor, your rentable requirement is about 4,952 sq ft. Round to 5,000 sq ft when searching. In London office leasing, you’ll find solid options for a tenant of this size in both downtown and suburban nodes, with different trade-offs on parking, transit, and operating costs.
Benchmarks you can sanity-check
For quick estimates, I keep these ranges in mind:
- Lean, hybrid-forward tech or media teams: 85 to 130 usable sq ft per on-site person, assuming efficient benching, phone rooms, and modest storage. After load, that can land near 95 to 150 rentable sq ft per peak person. Balanced professional services with a mix of open and enclosed: 130 to 180 usable per person, 150 to 210 rentable after load. Legal and accounting groups often sit here, especially those wanting more doors. Heavily enclosed or client-facing with larger rooms: 180 to 250 usable per person, 200 to 290 rentable. Think boutique finance, medical-adjacent support, or luxury office leasing in London with higher-end finishes and more spacious reception.
These are not rules. A nonprofit with large community meetings one day per month might sublease a boardroom inside a coworking space in London, Ontario and keep its footprint trim. A startup may opt for small business office space and live with denser desks to fund growth.
Reading the London, Ontario market
Space planning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Availability, building types, and commute patterns shape what makes sense.
Downtown London offers a wide range of office space for rent, from refurbished brick-and-beam to towers with strong amenities. Transit access is better downtown, walkable lunch spots help recruiting, and coworking space in London, Ontario can give flexible overflow. Class A towers will have higher load factors, plus operating costs that reflect robust building systems and shared amenities. Expect a polished lobby, attended security, and better HVAC zoning. If image matters for clients, this is where it shows.
Suburban corridors like the city’s south and west ends often provide easier parking ratios and sometimes lower gross occupancy costs. For teams with heavy car commutes, the time savings add up. Landlords in these submarkets are often more open to phased expansion clauses or early blend-and-extends, which helps if you are a business startup looking for office space that can flex as headcount grows.
St. Thomas, Sarnia, and Stratford each have their own rhythms. St. Thomas has seen demand tied to manufacturing and supply chain expansion, which skews toward practical, value-focused space. Sarnia has energy-adjacent services and a spread-out commuter base, so parking and proximity to highways lead. Stratford’s tech and creative scene leans toward character spaces with strong natural light, often in smaller floor plates. If you need the same cultural feel in London, look for brick-and-beam conversions or smaller downtown buildings that have preserved original brick, timber columns, and tall windows.
Across these markets, an office space rental agency or a landlord’s leasing team can share load factors, typical floor plate sizes, and any restrictions that affect planning, like plumbing locations or structural bays that limit room sizes.
The circulation trap, and how to avoid it
New tenants often underestimate the space required for people to move comfortably. This shows up as aisles that bottleneck, meeting rooms that open straight into desks, and a kitchen that feels like a subway platform at 12:10 p.m. When I plan test fits, I model circulation at the start rather than the end. If your brand celebrates collaboration, widen the spine corridor near your cafe to 6 to 8 feet and integrate short standing rails for quick chats. If your work is sensitive, separate the quiet zone with a buffer of storage or enclosed rooms.
In older buildings with irregular floor plates, effective circulation may need to detour around core elements. That’s fine if you acknowledge it early. It’s not fine if you need to grow by eight seats and realize the only place they fit blocks your exit path.
Meeting math that reflects reality
Most companies overbuild conference rooms because they fixate on calendar colors. A single recurring meeting that gobbles the 12-person boardroom every Tuesday can drive a large, expensive room that sits underused the rest of the week. Split that meeting into two 6-person sessions or move the project stand-up to cafe tables with mobile whiteboards, and you can shrink the boardroom.
Look at your past month of meetings. Count the actual average attendees, not the invite list. If you discover 70 percent of meetings have four people or fewer, build small rooms and phone booths. Reserve one medium or large room for client pitches and all-hands breakouts, then book a larger shared room in coworking when you need it. For a company using an office for lease in a suburban London building with limited shared amenities, a single divisible room with an operable wall can replace two separate rooms and support both training days and weekly reviews.
Storage, print, and the paper myth
Digitization reduced paper, it did not erase it. Architecture, legal, healthcare, and logistics still depend on printed docs and samples. A realistic rule: if more than 20 percent of your staff handles physical materials weekly, plan for a dedicated print and sample zone, not a printer on a filing cabinet. Centralized print zones reduce fleet costs and cut noise. For sample-heavy teams, I budget 1 to 2 linear feet of shelving per active project and scale storage over the quarter, not per employee.
Amenities that earn their keep
Good amenities earn back square footage by attracting people to the office and supporting the work they do. A cafe with real seating, decent acoustics, and bar-height counters doubles as informal meeting space. Phone booths keep open areas quiet and improve call quality. A wellness room takes a small slice of space and yields outsized value for parents, staff with chronic conditions, or anyone who needs privacy.
Gyms and showers make sense when they match your commute patterns. If your building already has end-of-trip facilities, you can skip in-suite showers. If you’re courting cyclists in the London West End, safe bike storage and a small shower may tip recruiting in your favor. Ask your office space provider in London whether the building’s amenities are included in rent, billed as a membership, or absorbed into operating costs.
Converting usable to rentable without surprises
Every lease in London, Ontario defines how square footage is measured. The devil sits in definitions of usable area, common area, and load factor. Two buildings with identical usable footprints can charge different rents because their load factors differ. Get the building’s BOMA measurement summary or equivalent from the landlord or your broker. If the rentable area feels high, ask whether the factor includes amenities on floors you don’t use, or if a recent renovation changed corridor sizes.
Your budget should use rentable numbers for base rent and operating costs, and usable numbers for furniture and layout. Keep both figures in your spreadsheet, side by side.
Growth planning without overpaying for emptiness
I like to size for 12 to 18 months of expected growth, then secure options that let you flex further. Here are three mechanisms that work in London office leasing:
- Expansion rights: a clause giving you the first right to lease adjacent space if it becomes available within a defined window. Contraction rights: less common, but some landlords will agree to a one-time giveback if you pay a fee or extend term. Blend-and-extend: if you outgrow early, you can expand into a larger suite midterm, blending your rate and extending the lease. This works best in buildings with multiple contiguous suites.
If you’re a lean startup eyeing business startups office space, consider an initial 12 to 24 month term in a coworking environment or a sublease, then graduate into a direct lease once your headcount stabilizes. Subleases and coworking agreements move faster and carry lower capital outlay for buildout and furniture, which preserves cash.
Buildout details that swing square footage
A few decisions change how much space you need:
- Desk size and storage. A 24 by 48 inch desk with a mobile pedestal fits denser than a 30 by 60 inch desk with a fixed credenza. Most knowledge workers function well at 24 by 48 when paired with a monitor arm and under-desk power. Room types. If you scatter eight-person rooms around because you “might need them,” you’ll underutilize them. Design more four-person rooms and only as many larger rooms as your meeting data supports. Kitchen placement. Put the kitchen where you want people to gather, often near daylight and away from the quiet zone. If you tuck it in the back with no seating, you’ll add a second informal area elsewhere and burn more square feet. Acoustics. Modest investments in sound masking and ceiling tiles let you keep plans open without creating a call center din. That allows tighter layouts without frayed nerves. IT and power. Early coordination avoids large, unused MDF rooms. Cloud-forward teams often need less comms space than standard fit-out templates assume.
Costs by building and fit-out level
London office space spans older B-class buildings with fair value to renovated downtown addresses with premium finishes. For budgeting, separate three buckets:
- Base rent: charged on rentable area. Downtown class A typically commands higher rates than suburban or B-class properties. Operating costs and taxes: also charged on rentable area; these vary by building age and efficiency. Elevators, larger lobbies, and energy systems push numbers up in exchange for comfort and image. Tenant improvements: buildout cost to match your layout and finishes. A light refresh with paint, carpet, and open-plan furniture can be economical. Building meeting rooms, adding glass fronts, and upgrading kitchens add cost. In luxury office leasing in London, expect higher finish costs and longer lead times for glass systems and premium millwork.
Landlords sometimes offer tenant improvement allowances for longer terms, especially for stable tenants. When comparing two offices for rent, normalize the deals across term, allowance, free rent, and operating costs. Your office rental in London, Ontario may look pricier per square foot but come with better efficiency and a lower load factor, making the usable area effectively cheaper.
When coworking fits, and when it doesn’t
Coworking space in London, Ontario gives speed and flexibility. If you’re under 20 people, need plug-and-play, and can tolerate less control over branding and layout, it’s often ideal. Teams with irregular client traffic also benefit from shared large meeting rooms and event spaces. The trade-offs are long-term cost per seat and potential noise or privacy issues. If confidentiality is central, look for managed suites within coworking that include private entries, dedicated meeting rooms, and your own network.
A hybrid approach works well: lease a smaller private office for core staff, and supplement with coworking passes for peak days. This lets you size your long-term lease for typical attendance while maintaining surge capacity.
Accessibility, comfort, and compliance
Ontario’s accessibility requirements affect corridors, door widths, and washroom access. Factor this into your calculator, because an extra six inches on a corridor might change your layout density. Beyond code, comfort is the cheapest retention tool available. Natural light, plants, and views reduce stress. Airflow matters more than most budgets admit. If the building’s HVAC zones don’t match your planned rooms, you’ll fight temperature battles forever. Ask for a mechanical plan review during test fits, not after lease signing.
A worked example for a growing startup
A health-tech startup in London has 24 employees today, expects 8 more within a year, and runs hybrid with a typical peak of 18 in-office. They want room for 24 on peak days by year end, prefer open plan, need strong privacy for clinician calls, and plan weekly all-hands of 26 in-person once a month as they bring more people in.
I’d propose 22 open desks at 60 sq ft, two quiet rooms at 45 sq ft each for heads-down or two-person quick huddles, four phone booths at 20 sq ft each, one 8-person conference room at 240 sq ft, two 4-person rooms at 80 sq ft each, and a cafe seating 14 at 28 sq ft per seat because they want that area to double as town hall overflow. Add a small mothers’ room at 80 sq ft, print/storage at 90 sq ft, and a compact server closet at 50 sq ft.
Math:
- 22 desks at 60 = 1,320 2 quiet rooms at 45 = 90 4 phone booths at 20 = 80 1 room for 8 = 240 2 rooms for 4 at 80 each = 160 Cafe 14 at 28 = 392 Mothers’ room 80 Print/storage 90 Server 50 Subtotal: 2,502 sq ft Circulation and incidental at 30 percent: 750 sq ft Usable total: ~3,252 sq ft Load factor 12 percent: rentable ~3,642 sq ft
Target 3,600 to 3,800 rentable. If a downtown building with a 17 percent load factor is otherwise perfect, they’d need about 3,810 rentable for the same usable. Price the delta, then decide whether the address and amenities justify it. If they occasionally need all-hands for 26, they can host it in the cafe by perching along the window rail, or book a larger room at a nearby coworking provider once a month.
Lease structure and flexibility for small teams
Smaller tenants often worry about being boxed into long commitments. Landlords in London, St. Thomas, Sarnia, and Stratford generally prefer terms of three to five years for traditional suites. To protect flexibility:
- Seek a furnished spec suite on a three-year term. Move-in speed is faster, capital outlay lower, and you avoid risk on construction pricing. Ask for renewal or expansion rights in writing, even for small suites. Show a plan for growth and a history of responsible operations; it helps the case. Consider sublease clauses that allow you to shed space if needed, subject to landlord approval. Markets with healthy demand make this more viable.
An experienced office space rental agency can surface off-market subleases or short-term direct lease options that don’t hit public listings. If you need an office for lease with immediate occupancy, these are often the fastest path.
Your square footage, translated into a search brief
Once you’ve run the calculator and tested a few scenarios, translate the outcome into a clear brief for brokers and landlords. Include headcount today and in 12 to 24 months, peak on-site attendance, ratio of open to enclosed seats, number and sizes of meeting rooms, special rooms required, preferred neighborhoods, parking needs, and a target rentable square footage range. If transit access or bike facilities are must-haves, say so. If image matters for client perception, lean toward downtown class A and note reception needs.
This brief is your filter. It keeps you from touring spaces that can’t fit the layout, even if the rent looks enticing. It also speeds landlord test fits, because space planners can map your exact needs without guessing.
A short checklist to stress-test your numbers
- Did you base seat counts on observed peak attendance, not headcount? Do your meeting room sizes match actual average meeting sizes from calendar data? Have you applied a realistic circulation percentage and confirmed the building load factor? Did you allocate room for phone booths or quiet rooms to protect focus work? Have you captured storage, IT, and amenities that support the way your team actually works?
Finding the right spaces to tour
With numbers in hand, start with a broad view. Pull options in downtown London, the west end, and any suburban nodes that fit your commute patterns. Include at least one coworking or managed suite option as a benchmark for speed and fit-out quality. Compare not only rent but load factors, operating costs, parking ratios, and floor plate shapes. A 5,000 rentable square foot rectangle often plans more efficiently than a 5,500 rentable square foot irregular shape that forces odd corridors.
If you have a tight timeline, consider spec suites where landlords have already built modern layouts with glass-front rooms, phone booths, and a kitchenette. For office space for lease in London, Ontario, spec suites are increasingly common and can be leased quickly.
The last 5 percent: details that keep people happy
Once you’ve picked a space, dial in the human details. Choose task chairs that fit a range of body types. Install monitor arms to reclaim desk surface and reduce neck strain. Put power where people need it, at desktop or in pop-ups, not just in floor boxes behind furniture. Treat the cafe like a living room, with zones for quick bites, laptops, and informal huddles. Plant life and warm materials soften open areas without soaking up square footage.
Small touches signal care: coat hooks near entries, bag cubbies at bench ends, and a dedicated shelf for packages so reception doesn’t turn into a mess. Teams return to offices that function, not just spaces that photograph well.
Bringing it all together
Right-sizing your office starts with how your team works, then turns into a math exercise that respects circulation, meeting patterns, amenities, and the realities of rentable area. The numbers guide you, but your culture decides the mix. In London and nearby markets like St. Thomas, Sarnia, and Stratford, you can find everything from budget-friendly small business office space to high-visibility addresses suitable for client-heavy firms. If you prefer turnkey speed, coworking and managed suites in London provide a strong interim or long-term solution. If brand and permanence matter, traditional leasing offers control and identity.
Treat your square footage target as a living number. Revisit it after three months in the new space to confirm assumptions. If you planned well, you’ll see steady attendance, rooms sized to real meetings, and a cafe that hums without drowning the office. If something feels off, adjust the layout before it becomes a routine frustration. Space is a tool. Measured correctly, it makes hiring easier, work smoother, and clients more confident the moment they step through the door.
111 Waterloo St Suite 306, London, ON N6B 2M4 (226) 781-8374 XQG6+QH London, Ontario Office space rental agency THE FOCAL POINT GROUP IS YOUR GUIDE IN THE OFFICE-SEARCH PROCESS. Taking our fifteen years of experience in the commercial office space sector, The Focal Point Group has developed tools, practices and methods of assisting our prospective tenants to finding their ideal office space. We value the opportunity to come alongside future tenants and meet them where they are at, while working with them to bring their vision to life. We look forward to being your guide on this big step forward!