What would you do with $241,307?

April 15, 2021
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What would you do with an extra $241,307?

The other side of this question is, how much does it cost to store and protect your drawings?

There is no way around it, storage, curation and protection of physical, paper drawings costs money. This is analogous to the cost of a library and is an overhead with hidden expenditure. The cost analysis goes something like this.

Line item costs for say a 10′ x 30′ conditioned and secure storage space:

Physical 10′ x 30′ storage space.
Ventilating, heating and cooling storage space.
Fire protection.
Security and access control.
Drawings organization i.e. racking and shelving.
Maintenance.
Environmental i.e. consequential polluting effects of heating & cooling plus embodied carbon of construction materials.
Opportunity costs i.e. what else could you do with this conditioned space? Could it generate revenue?

Cost for an existing 10′ x 30′ space within your building:

Ave rent (source #1 below) = $23.62/sq.ft = $7,086/year
Security / access control = $1.00/sq.ft = $300/year
Total annual cost of storage space = $7,386/year
Total cumulative cost of storage over 25 years assuming 2% per year inflation = $241,307

Note, this annual cost excludes:

Fit out costs i.e. stacking / shelving / retrieval systems for drawings, say $8,000
Curation and retrieval costs included in FM staff salaries.
Opportunity costs e.g. sub-letting this space or using it for revenue generating work.

Cost for a secure storage unit 10′ x 30′ in a third party, offsite location:

Monthly rent (source #2 below) = $538/month
Total annual cost of storage space = $6,456/year
Total cumulative cost of offsite storage over 25 years assuming 2% per year inflation = $210,923

Note, this annual cost excludes:

Curation and retrieval costs from offsite location.
Consequential effects from not having immediate access to drawings on site.

Given all these recurring costs the case for digitization of all your facilities drawings becomes clear. Literally $1,000’s can be saved each year and all your drawings can be organized and accessed in seconds.

Why are you still using paper drawings and paying all these storage costs? Get a drawing management strategy from The Drawing Specialists.

Sources

Source #1 – 2021 Midtown Toronto rent $23.62/sq.ft. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/802500/asking-rent-per-sf-office-space-toronto-by-submarket/)
Source #2 – 2021 Toronto GTA off site self storage rent for 10′ x 30′ = $538 month (https://bluebirdstorage.ca/facilities/toronto/)

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