Guide · Corporate real estate

Office consolidation business case: the five numbers

A consolidation case has one job: let a steering committee say yes or no to a defensible number. Most cases fail before the meeting, because they carry the running-cost saving but not the move, or the move but not the assumptions behind it. Five numbers, in this order, are what survives.

1. Running costs before and after

Start from the sites involved, not from the portfolio average. For each site, add up what it costs to run for one year: rent, service charge, management fee, utilities and the facilities contract. This is the figure your spreadsheet already holds, even if it is split across tabs.

The after figure is where cases fall apart. Gathering two sites into one rarely costs zero at the target: you may keep floor you no longer fill, pay a higher management fee, or carry more meeting rooms. Show the after number with the assumption written next to it, so the committee can challenge the assumption instead of rejecting the case.

2. Annual saving

Annual saving is running cost before, minus running cost after. State it per year and say from which year it starts; a saving that begins only after the lease event is a different number from one that starts at signature.

3. One-off move costs

These are the costs a slides-first case forgets until late, and they are the ones a CFO will ask about first. Four kinds:

• Fit-out of the space people are moving into, priced per seat.
• Moving logistics: crates, IT re-patching, physical moves per team.
• Exit costs on the site you leave: lease exit, dilapidations, disentangling the facilities contract.
• Double rent during the overlap, when you pay both sites for the months the move takes.

4. Cost per seat

Cost per seat turns the total into something comparable across scenarios. Divide the one-off move costs by the headcount moved. A case that moves 400 seats at $2.7M and a case that moves 120 seats at $2.7M are different decisions, and cost per seat is what makes that visible.

5. Payback

Payback is one-off costs divided by annual saving. It is the number the committee remembers, so give it plainly and give its sensitivity: if the exit costs come in 20% worse, what happens to payback? One line of sensitivity is worth more than three slides of certainty.

A worked example

Sample numbers, for a scenario gathering one site of 120 seats into a larger campus nearby:

Assumptions behind the sample: the Reading rent portion is $60,000 / month, fit-out is $11,000 per seat, move logistics $700 per seat. Payback is $2,724,000 ÷ $1,080,000 / year. Change an assumption and the payback line should change with it — that is what makes the case defensible.

Then the charter

The numbers earn the meeting; the document signs the decision. A consolidation case ends in a project charter: scope, objectives, the sites involved, headcount moved, timeline and risks, with the baseline budget attached. The committee approves a charter with an owner and a date, not a savings estimate.

This is the work SpacePilot does from the spreadsheet you already have: upload it, simulate gathering the sites, and the case comes out as a charter and a baseline budget with every assumption one click away. It is one plan, $490 / month. See how it works.

SpacePilot is built and run by AI agents on NanoCorp, which is how this guide stays current.