swot example - commercial building

SWOT ANALYSIS EXAMPLE
3 COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS IN THE ACT
CANBERRA SUBURB: W
STRENGTHS
LOCATION
The buildings have a good location. The Commonwealth offices precinct is a well established and serviced with easy access to other nearby government departments. The subject buildings have good access to the full range of facilities offered by W including the retail component in W Plaza and the professional offices in C Street.
W has high accessibility to the CBD and to most parts of Canberra. It has close proximity of the T Parkway and other arterial roads enabling good communication with the southern suburbs. The Parkway also allows easy communication to the northern suburbs including Belconnen and Adelaide Avenue allows easy communication with Barton and the CBD.

BUILDINGS
A and B were built in 1971 and partly refurbished in 1999. Internally, the main block and annexes are air conditioned, carpeted and have suspended acoustic tiled ceilings with recessed flourescent lights.
F House is a separate 2 storey building with a basement built in 1975. It underwent an upgrade of services (including the air conditioning) and fitout in 2000/2001.
The foyers of A and B were also upgraded including signage, paving and general amenity providing a more welcoming presentation to the public. The buildings have large frontages with a good aspect to the east and west. The upper levels have good views.

ACCESS
The buildings have good access as they are in close proximity to the W Bus Interchange off C Street. Further, there is good access to arterial roads as the shopping precinct is served by the arterial roads of H Drive, Y Drive, A Drive and A Avenue.
The buildings being part of the W Town Centre have good access to retail, banking, professional service facilities, Government Information Centre, library and the W Post Office. There are a number of professional suites in C Street.
The immediate courtyard area is used by a large population of public servants. There are extensive recreation parks on E Street, a swimming Pool and P Oval across L Street all of which are within walking distance of the buildings.

LAYOUT
Staff have good access to daylight and views. Natural lighting is particularly good along the perimeters. There is satisfactory interaction between divisions intra buildings and the floor layout supports operational style and communications.

LIFTS
There are 2 passenger lifts in each of A and B buildings. They were upgraded to an acceptable standard of finish with installation of indicators and controls suitable for use by the disabled.

HEAVY LOAD ZONES
The buildings provide sufficient areas to suit compactus loadings as required by the Department on each floor.

WEAKNESSES

SITE DEFECTS
Because of poor external maintenance. the tenant has maintained the immediate footpaths and surrounds. Debris and cigarette buts clog the air conditioners’ input grates because they are badly located on busy pedestrian thoroughfares at ground level.

LAYOUT
The ceilings are of an imperial modular system making it hard to subdivide with metric partitioning. The large area of fenestration leads to high cooling and heating costs. The long line of fenestration on the south side particularly, is indicative of old fashioned and energy inefficient design.

BUILDING
The appearance of the buildings is adequate only. The ground floor has a metal mesh facade requiring repair and/or replacing. The large area of fenestration on the south side increases energy consumption.
Tenant improvements on the lower floors of toilets, tearooms and air conditioning are to be ignored in this valuation. Therefore, the lower floors are valued as non air conditioned, without adequate toilets and tearooms. The tenant has installed tearooms throughout the buildings and these have been ignored for the determination of market value.

PASSENGER LIFTS
There are 4 lifts dedicated for staff and public use only. There are no service lifts. Therefore, the removal of large objects, renovation and upgrading works interfere substantially with staff and public ingress and egress, and safety.
The fault reports show a marked increase in stoppages and freefalls over the last 3 months (see the separate submission). It would appear that the lifts are difficult to repair as replacement parts are not readily available. It fact it would appear that the lifts are obsolete and should be replaced.

SERVICES ACCESS AND LOADING
Services access and loading is poor. There is no loading dock facilities to the buildings and poor access to the basements. All incoming goods must be distributed through the building via the front entry lift lobby. There is no dedicated goods lift and no lift access to the basement where some nominal storage space is available. This is unacceptable for buildings of nearly 20 000 m².
Refuse is collected across staff connecting walkways. This is dangerous, disruptive and contrary to OHS requirements.

DISABILITY ACCESS
The disability access is average only and unacceptable to the tenant. The current disability toilets have been installed by the tenant and therefore are to be ignored in the valuation. Access to disabled toilet facilities is poor. The existing toilets are not strictly in accordance with AS1481: Design for Access and Mobility, with respect to location and setout of fixtures and cubicle sizes. Occupational Health & Safety standards require disabled toilets on each level.

OCCUPANCY EFFICIENCY
The tenancy areas are acceptable for current use but they are not as efficient as current design standards obtainable in a new office building. They could be changed into more efficient units under modern floor plan configurations but which is a difficult exercise because of the imperial unit ceiling components.

ACCESS TO SHOWERS AND CHANGE ROOMS
Access to showers and change rooms are unsatisfactory. There is one female shower facility and one male facility for both buildings. Commonwealth and modern building standards require 6 showers in total for each building. Lockers are also required in the changeroom facilities equal in number to the showers.

OUTDOOR AREAS WITHIN BUILDING
There are no outdoor areas within the building so that staff can only enjoy fresh by going outside. However, there is a courtyard between the two buildings.

CHILD MINDING FACILITIES
There are no child minding facilities within the building unlike for example, the E Building.

TOILET FACILITIES
The toilet facilities without the tenants inclusions are poor. The facilities in Levels 3 to 8 of both buildings meet the requirements of the Building Code of Australia. However, the toilet facilities on levels Ground to 2 are insufficient to meet Building Code of Australia requirements where the annexe forms part of the overall net lettable area.

CARPARKS
There are no dedicated carparks in either building or in the open areas. This is unlike for example, the L Tower (secondary sale evidence), 1 B Street (primary sale evidence), S House and 15 B Street. The main carpark is the F Street carpark which is fully ultilised. Carpaking for employees has deteriorated since 2001 through the expansion of the H Club and the building of a hotel in L Street. Further deterioration will result from the development of the S carpark where about 150 carspaces will be lost. The Development Application for S has been lodged and approved.
The dearth of parking has been recognised in the W Master Plan where the ACT Government plans to build a multi storey carpark on the site of the current F Street carpark. However, at this stage it is a proposal only and would not be ready until the end of the subject lease. The proposed time frame would cause the loss of the F Street carpark to staff during the construction phase in the last 24 months of the current lease.
The deterioration in the availability of carparking for employees of the tenant over the last 2 years and the further deterioration over the next 2 years are important factors affecting the market value of the subject buildings.
The total loss will be further exacerbated with further expansion of the H Club in the eastern carpark. The reconfiguration of the residue carparks will favour short term parking at the expense of all day parking further exacerbating the carparking facilities. This will have a major impact on the staff of the 3 buildings and a detrimental effect on market values.

SECURITY
Following a number of incidents it has become necessary for the tenant to provide security staff for members of staff (particularly female staff working after hours) going to and from the F Street carpark.
This underlines a problem arising from not having dedicated parking within the buildings. Security problems are expected to increase following the loss of the S carpark as staff will have to walk further after hours to the eastern and northern carparks. This will require the tenant to increase their number of security staff.

SPACE UTILISATION
Space utilisation is unsatisfactory. Ceiling heights to typical floors was originally 2740mm throughout the main buildings and annex but various upgrades have necessitated the creation of a bulkhead running the length of each wing that is 2440mm high and now comprises 35% of the total ceiling area within the leased area.
In open office areas the thermostats serving the mechanical system are suspended on square ducting from the ceiling to "immediately above head height". They are unsightly and pose a safety hazard. The ceiling to ground level heights of the main buildings are substantially higher than 2700 mm.
There are problems with the alignment of the ceiling grid which is in poor condition and needs replacement.

INTRUDING COLUMNS
Usable office space is compromised by a column grid of 4.88m in one direction which is substantially smaller than the 8.4 m minimum required by the modern guidelines. It is not compatible with the conventional 1.2m construction module for workstations, tiled ceilings and office systems generally. The problem has been compounded by the use of imperial units and boxing around the columns to form service cupboards/ducts, water cooler recesses etc.

OTHER OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY MATTERS
The lighting quality of the buildings are far too low and the thermostats are poorly located at head height. Very few areas in A and B meet the OH&S requirement of 400lux.
As many of the current toilets have been installed by the tenant, the building must be viewed with insufficient toilet facilities and with disabled toilet facilities are below acceptable standards.

AIR CONDITIONING
Over a long period (1986 to 1993) the entire air handling and distribution systems were changed in stages so as to provide separate air handling systems for each floor. This process is not yet complete so that the 4th and 6th floor in A still rely on the old central plant.
The main block ground floors were previously computer facilities so that the air conditioning system is supplied by the tenant and therefore, this area is to be valued as unconditioned office space. The central energy plant is adequate but requires the help of the tenant's facilities during peak periods.
Supplementary air conditioning is adequate but there is inadequate ventilation of the toilets.
A major inherent problem is that the inlets to the air condition system are located at street level outside the building. This attracts refuse (eg cigarette buts and leaves) causing maintenance problems and trucks pick up and deliver introduces pollution from exhaust fumes.

STAIR PRESSURISATION
The buildings do not have stair pressurisation as required under AS 1668. Because of return air imbalances significant pressure driven air flows occur to or from various floors via the fire stairs. Even under the "performance based" code (the BCA), the buildings do not comply.

FIRE PROTECTION
Sprinkler systems are not installed but are required by the BCA. The basic requirement is that a building of this nature over 25m high should have a fire sprinkler system that complies with AS 2118. Smoke detectors and the Fire detection and alarm system systems are adequate.
The ground floor in A and also its mezzanine level do not have emergency lighting. Cable selection, metering, sub station and cabling do not to meet Commonwealth Lease Requirements.

OPPORTUNITIES

There are few opportunities for buildings which are functionally and economically obsolete. Further upgrading is not economically viable and demolition is the best opportunity. The only factors keeping the buildings are the current leases to the Commonwealth.
The site is a good site for redevelopment into new and modern office buildings with much lower energy costs, better layout and office design and with dedicated carparking facilities.

THREATS

The pending redevelopment of the S carpark and the expansion of the H club into the western carpark are the major threats. Under the new arrangements there will be a greater ratio of short term carspaces. These developments will have a major impact on the number of carspaces available to the tenant's staff and market value.
Other threats include better buildings coming onto the market place. The two main and large buildings are S House (currently vacant) and N’s proposal for G House. Both are large and will have a major impact on the amount of office space available in W.