Occupancy rate of office building drops to 20-30 percent
Occupancy rate of office building drops to 20-30 percent
Bambang Nurbianto
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Occupancy rates of office buildings in the capital have
continued to decrease due to the prolonged economic crisis and
are now estimated to reach below 30 percent.
Dharma Sjachrial Pohan, co-chairman of the Indonesian Building
Maintenance Association (APBI), said on Monday that the occupancy
rate of buildings in Jakarta, including those in the Kuningan-
Thamrin-Sudirman central business district, are estimated to
reach between 20-30 percent on average.
"You can see now that many buildings in Jakarta are now
vacant. The condition has been worsening continuously since the
economic crisis first hit Indonesia in 1997," Dharma told The
Jakarta Post on Monday during a break from a seminar on building
maintenance.
A survey by the building maintenance association in 1977, just
before the crisis hit the country, showed that occupancy rates of
some 1,300 buildings in Jakarta reached 70 percent, while a
similar survey in 1999 showed that the occupancy rates declined
to 40 percent.
The low occupancy rate makes the management unable to provide
adequate funding for ideal building maintenance, Dharma said.
Sharing Dharma's viewpoint, Oktosa Harahap of the PT Gedung
BankExim said that the financial constrain has caused the
building managers to reduce their budgets for building
maintenance.
"Such conditions seriously affect the condition of the
buildings. Therefore, we often see many buildings which are not
well-maintained. It can be seen from many parts of the buildings,
including their rest rooms," said Oktosa.
In the short-term, the streamlining of the building
maintenance could cut financial expenses for the management, but
in the long term, it would give negative impact to the condition
of buildings, he warned.
In 1997, a survey on maintenance and management of 40
buildings along Jl. Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman in Central and South
Jakarta, found that only seven percent met the proper
requirements for building maintenance, Jimmy Siswanto Juwana, a
lecturer at Trisakti University, said.
He believes the condition is worse now.
Meanwhile, Thoby Mutis, rector of the University, told the
seminar that many of buildings, which are now under control of
the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), have less value
because they are not well maintained.
He said that the government needs to give attention to the
properties, so that their value will not steadily decline.
"I think there should be institutions tasked to maintain the
state assets," he said.