Floor Loading, Freight Elevators and Docks for Hardware Teams

A software company moves in with desks, chairs and laptops, and no part of the building is strained by any of it. A team building robots, sensors, devices or test rigs brings objects that are heavy, large or delivered on pallets, and three parts of the building suddenly matter.

• The floor: whether the structure can carry the equipment where you want to put it.
• The vertical route: whether the freight elevator can lift it and whether it fits in the cab.
• The ground-level route: whether a truck can reach the building, unload, and get the shipment inside.

A failure at any one of them can make an otherwise ideal space unusable. They are also the hardest things to fix after signing, because structure, elevators and docks belong to the landlord and are expensive to change. This guide gives no capacity figures. The right numbers come from the building’s drawings and a structural engineer’s review of your actual equipment.

No one can evaluate a building for you without knowing what you are bringing. Have your hardware lead prepare a schedule covering present equipment and what you expect to add during the lease.

• Each significant item: machines, test chambers, robot cells, server racks, battery systems, storage racking, safes, large printers or fabrication tools.
• Operating weight, including fluids, fixtures and material loaded on it, taken from the manufacturer.
• Footprint and how the weight reaches the floor: spread across a base, or concentrated on a few legs or casters.
• Shipping dimensions and weight, crated, which are usually larger than the installed size.
• Whether the item produces vibration or movement in operation, or is sensitive to vibration from elsewhere.
• How it has to be moved: pallet jack, forklift, crane or specialty rigging.
• How often material arrives and leaves once you are operating, and on what kind of vehicle.

This one document feeds the structural review, the elevator and dock questions, and your conversations with movers and riggers.

Every floor is designed to carry a certain load, and building codes set minimums by type of use. An office floor is designed for office use. Whether it can take something heavier depends on how the building was engineered, where on the floor the load sits relative to columns and beams, and how the weight is distributed.

Two ideas are worth understanding before you talk to an engineer. A distributed load is spread across an area, like rows of desks. A concentrated or point load presses on a small area, like the leg of a heavy machine. A floor can be adequate for the first and inadequate for the second, even at the same total weight. Moving equipment across a floor on its way to its final position creates its own loads along the route.

• ✓What floor load capacity does the landlord state for our premises, and what document is that based on?
• ✓Can the landlord provide the structural drawings for our floor?
• ✓Are there areas of the floor with higher capacity, such as near columns or the building core?
• ✓Has the floor been altered, cored or reinforced by prior tenants?
• ✓Will the landlord allow reinforcement if our engineer recommends it, and who pays?
• ✓Does the landlord require its own structural engineer to review our plans, and at whose cost?
• ✓Are there restrictions on anchoring equipment to the slab?

Verification belongs to a licensed structural engineer whom you hire, working from the building’s drawings and your equipment schedule. A leasing agent’s assurance, or a figure on a marketing sheet, is not verification. If the engineer finds a shortfall, the options are usually to spread the load with plates or platforms, relocate the equipment to a stronger part of the floor, reinforce the structure, or choose a different space.

A ground-floor space on a slab resting on grade often removes the floor loading question that an upper floor raises. It is one reason hardware teams look at flex and industrial buildings.

If you are above the ground floor, everything large arrives by freight elevator. Passenger elevators are not an alternative. Buildings prohibit freight in them, and their cabs and finishes are not built for it.

• ✓Does the building have a dedicated freight elevator, or a passenger car that is padded and used for freight?
• ✓What is its rated capacity?
• ✓What are the interior cab dimensions, the door opening width and height, and the diagonal clearance for long items?
• ✓Does it serve our floor and the loading dock directly, or is a transfer required?
• ✓What hours is it available, and must large deliveries be scheduled outside business hours?
• ✓How is it reserved, how far ahead, and is there a charge for exclusive or after-hours use?
• ✓Is an operator required, and who pays for that person’s time?
• ✓How often is it out of service, and is there a second car?

Have your mover or rigger confirm the fit against shipping dimensions, not installed dimensions. Then look past the elevator. Corridor widths, turns, door openings, ceiling heights along the route and the floor finishes the equipment will roll over all need to be checked. If something will not fit, ask early whether the building has ever allowed hoisting through a window or the roof, and expect that to require landlord approval, permits and specialist contractors.

Docks vary more than any other part of a building. Downtown office towers may have a small dock off an alley shared by every tenant and the building’s own trash and deliveries. Suburban office buildings may have no raised dock at all. Flex and industrial buildings are designed around loading and usually have the most capable facilities.

• ✓Is there a raised dock, a ground-level door, or only a service entrance?
• ✓What size of truck can physically reach and use it, considering the street, alley, turning room and overhead clearance?
• ✓Is there equipment to bridge between truck and dock, or a lift for trucks of different heights?
• ✓What are the dock hours, and is there a dock master or check-in procedure?
• ✓How long may a truck stay, and is there a place to stage a shipment before it goes up?
• ✓Is the dock shared, how busy is it, and can time be reserved?
• ✓Are there local restrictions on delivery hours, truck routes or street parking that affect us?
• ✓Is there secure, covered space to receive pallets or crates if no one from our team is present?
• ✓How does waste leave, including pallets, crating, scrap and anything requiring special disposal?

Match the dock to your operating pattern, not only to move-in day. A team receiving an occasional crate can work with almost any building. A team shipping and receiving weekly needs a dock it can count on, and that may point away from office buildings altogether.

Buildings regulate how heavy and bulky items come in. The rules and regulations attached to the lease commonly require advance notice for large deliveries, use of approved or insured movers and riggers, protection of floors and walls, and certificates of insurance from every vendor. Ask for the rules before you sign, since they affect cost and schedule.

1. Share the equipment schedule with the landlord during the proposal stage and ask for written responses on floor capacity, freight elevator and dock.
2. Have your structural engineer review the drawings and your mover or rigger walk the route.
3. State in the lease the floor load the landlord represents for your premises and your right to install the listed equipment.
4. Add the right to reinforce the floor or anchor equipment with landlord consent not unreasonably withheld, and say who pays.
5. Confirm rights to use the freight elevator and dock, the hours, and any charges.
6. Check that the use clause permits your assembly, testing and storage activity.
7. Clarify responsibility for damage during moves, and what reinforcement or anchoring must be removed at the end of the term.
8. Have your attorney review the language and your insurance broker review the coverage requirements.

Tenant Advisory Group represents tenants in office, flex and industrial leases, and for technology companies with hardware we gather structural, freight and dock information with the request for proposal so that buildings that cannot physically work are eliminated before a tour.