Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Typically Commercial/IT Buildings/Retail malls lease out spaces to multi-tenants. There are also common areas such as lobbies, atriums, plant rooms, etc which are common to the tenants. The common areas incur costs and expenses which are collected and recovered from the respective tenants occupying the premises.

These Common Area Maintenance charges (called as CAM charges) comprises of Electricity charges, Water charges, Security and Housekeeping charges, replenishments expenses (such as lights, regular maintenance, etc), Property taxes, etc. These charges are generally passed on to the tenants on a monthly/quarterly basis. Apart from the location and the extent of footfalls that the property attracts, any commercial property which has the lowest CAM charges as well as highest standards of upkeep, is found as most sought after by the tenants.
The challenge is to determine what could be the novel ideas/methods in which these CAM(Common Area Maintenance ) charges could be significantly reduced ?.