Most fit-out projects that go over budget or slip their handover date were lost at the lease, not on site. By the time the agreement of leave-and-licence is signed, the two biggest cost drivers. The condition the building hands you and the constraints it imposes on your build. Are already fixed. You can value-engineer a ceiling detail; you cannot retrofit a floorplate that wastes 18% of its area on circulation, or conjure backup power the building never provisioned.
This is the work that should happen before you shortlist, and certainly before you sign: reading what the base building actually gives you, modelling how your headcount fits the plate, and pressure-testing the landlord's fit-out rules against your programme. Below is the due-diligence sequence we run with clients evaluating buildings in BKC, Lower Parel, Andheri, Hinjewadi, Kharadi and Baner. The checks that decide whether a building is a bargain or a trap.
Cat-A vs warm shell: know exactly what you are inheriting
The single most expensive misunderstanding in office building selection is assuming "ready" means ready. Buildings are handed over in very different states, and the words are used loosely. Pin the landlord down in writing on what is in scope before you compare offers.
| Handover condition | What you typically get | What you still pay for |
|---|---|---|
| Bare / cold shell | Structural slab, core walls, external glazing. No flooring, ceiling, or distributed services. | Entire Cat-A and Cat-B: ceilings, raised floor or screed, primary HVAC distribution, fire systems, the lot. |
| Warm shell | Shell plus base building services brought to the floor. Power supply at the panel, AC plant, fire and plumbing risers, washrooms. | Cat-A finishes and all of Cat-B (your interiors, FF&E, branding). |
| Cat-A fitted | Finished raised floor/screed, suspended ceiling, lighting, distributed HVAC, fire detection, base sprinklers. A blank, code-compliant floor. | Cat-B only: your layout, joinery, meeting rooms, finishes, FF&E. |
The trap is paying a Cat-A rent for a warm shell, or inheriting a Cat-A so generic that half of it is demolished on day one of your turnkey design-build. A landlord-installed Cat-A with the ceiling grid, lighting layout and HVAC zoning fixed to a speculative plan can actively fight your design intent. You pay once for it and again to strip it. Ask for the Cat-A drawings and specification, not just the label, and have them reviewed against your likely layout before you assign any value to "fitted".
Floorplate efficiency: the number that quietly sets your rent per seat
Two floors of identical carpet area can hold very different headcounts. Floorplate efficiency. The usable, fit-out-able area left after cores, columns, ducts and circulation. Is what you actually pay to occupy, and it varies enormously between Grade-A towers and older stock.
When we test a plate, we look at:
- Core position and shape. A central core leaves a regular perimeter band that lays out cleanly; an off-centre or split core creates deep, dark zones that are hard to use for anything but storage.
- Column grid. A 8–9 m structural grid lets workstation clusters and meeting rooms align; a tight or irregular grid forces awkward partitions and wasted setbacks.
- Floor-to-floor and clear height. You need clear height after the raised floor and ceiling void. Typically 2.7 m finished is comfortable; below that, services get squeezed and the space feels low.
- Glazing line and depth. Plates deeper than ~12–15 m from the facade leave a dark core that no daylight reaches, which matters for both WELL ambitions and simple staff comfort.
Translate efficiency into the only metric leadership cares about: cost per seat. A plate at 82% efficiency on a 9 m grid will seat materially more people per rented square foot than a 70% plate with intrusive columns. Often enough to offset a higher headline rent. This is exactly the modelling our workplace strategy team runs before a building shortlist is finalised.
MEP, HVAC and power: read the base provisions, not the brochure
Mechanical, electrical and plumbing capacity is where buildings quietly fail dense or technical occupiers. The brochure says "centrally air-conditioned"; the question is whether the base build can carry your load. Have an MEP engineer interrogate the base provisions before you commit. Our MEP engineering team treats this as a gating check.
- Power allocation. Confirm sanctioned load per floor in watts per sq ft. A trading desk, lab or GCC engineering floor with dual monitors and heavier equipment can need 12–18 W/sq ft against a base provision of 6–8. Topping up sanctioned load post-signing is slow and not always possible.
- Backup power. What percentage of your load sits on DG backup, and is the building genset sized for it? Many buildings back up only common areas and a token tenant allowance. If you need 100% backup for a server room or 24x7 GCC shift, establish whether you can add a dedicated DG and where it goes.
- HVAC type and hours. Chilled-water with floor-level AHUs gives you zoning control; older VRV/package systems may not. Critically, check the cooling provision (TR per sq ft) against a dense occupancy, and confirm after-hours AC terms. Extended-hours charges can be brutal for a night-shift GCC.
- Risers and shafts. Spare capacity in electrical, data and AC risers determines whether you can run a server room or extra UPS. No spare riser means no expansion.
Lifts, service access and the landlord's fit-out rulebook
These are the unglamorous constraints that decide your build programme. they almost never appear in the marketing pack. Get the fit-out guidelines document early; it is as important as the commercial term sheet.
- Lift and service access. Is there a dedicated service lift sized for materials, and a loading bay? On a high floor with one shared service lift and a single goods slot a day, a fit-out that should take ten weeks stretches to fourteen purely on logistics.
- Working hours. Many premium buildings restrict noisy or wet works to nights and weekends. That can be sensible. But it changes your schedule and your cost, and you need to know before you price the job.
- Approvals and NOCs. Confirm who carries the building fire NOC and OC, and what the landlord requires for your fit-out drawings, contractor entry, and final sign-off. A building without a clean occupancy certificate is a serious risk.
- Captive vendors and deposits. Some landlords mandate their own HVAC, fire or facade contractors and levy a fit-out security deposit and supervision charge. Price these in. They are real money and they constrain your contractor choices.
- Reinstatement. Read the make-good clause now. An obligation to strip back to Cat-A at lease end is a future cost you should provision for at the start.
Run a test-fit before you sign. Every time
If you take one thing from this: commission a test-fit on your top two buildings before you sign anything. A test-fit (or fit-factor study) overlays your real headcount, growth plan, meeting-room mix and amenity needs onto the actual floor plate. It is a few days of design work, and it routinely changes the decision.
A test-fit answers the questions a brochure cannot:
- Does my headcount actually fit? Including three-year growth, the ratio of focus rooms to open desks your teams really use, and the amenity floor you have promised.
- How many usable seats per floor. At what density? The honest number after columns, cores and circulation, not the agent's notional capacity.
- Where do the constraints bite? The test-fit exposes the column that kills a boardroom, the deep core that wastes 40 sq m, the riser that forces your server room to the wrong corner.
Run the same brief across both buildings and you get a true like-for-like comparison: seats delivered, quality of those seats, and the fit-out cost to get there. Pair the test-fit with our office fit-out cost guide and you can present leadership a defensible total cost per seat per building. Which is the number that should pick the lease.
Micro-location: the block matters more than the city
"Mumbai" and "Pune" are not locations; the specific node and even the specific tower are. Once a building clears the technical due diligence, weigh the micro-location against how your people actually commute and how clients reach you.
- Mumbai. BKC offers prestige, metro connectivity and a GCC cluster, at a premium and with parking pressure. Lower Parel suits creative and finance occupiers wanting amenity density. Andheri (east, around the metro and SEEPZ/MIDC) trades address for value and a deep talent catchment. Often the rational choice for a scaling team.
- Pune. Hinjewadi is the established IT/GCC heartland with scale but real traffic-ingress pain at peak; weigh access roads and the metro extension carefully. Kharadi (around EON and the eastern corridor) has become the premium choice for new GCC and enterprise occupiers. Baner offers a balance of residential proximity and emerging Grade-A stock for mid-size teams.
For a multi-floor or multi-city enterprise programme, this is where GCC and enterprise fit-out planning pays off. Aligning the building shortlist with talent geography, transport, and a consistent workplace standard across sites rather than optimising one lease in isolation.
Frequently asked questions
Not necessarily. A landlord Cat-A saves you ceiling, flooring and base services only if its grid, lighting and HVAC zoning suit your layout. If your design forces you to strip and rebuild much of it, you pay for it twice. Always have the Cat-A drawings reviewed against your likely plan before crediting it value.
Grade-A towers with a central core and a regular ~9 m grid commonly deliver 80–85% usable efficiency; older or oddly-cored stock can drop to 65–70%. The headline rent matters less than cost per usable seat, so convert efficiency into seats-per-floor for your density before comparing buildings.
For a single floor, a useful test-fit is typically a few working days once we have your headcount, growth plan and space brief. Fast enough to run on your shortlisted buildings before signing, and cheap insurance against committing to a plate that cannot hold your team.