The Development of a Classification Model for Purpose Built Offices in the Golden Triangle Area of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

This paper discusses the development of a reliable and realistic instrument to classify purpose built offices in the Golden Triangle Area of Kuala Lumpur. The classification of purpose built offices represents the fundamental to the development of office market performance indicators in the country, specifically the current office price or rental index. Research on classification of office buildings in Malaysia has been largely focused on the effects of location and environmental factors. However, the role of property specific attributes that form intrinsic features to the Malaysian office building, has been a neglected area of research. The research undertaken, therefore, focused on a set of case studies consisting of fourty-one purpose built offices located within the Golden Triangle Area of Kuala Lumpur. In this research, office building attributes and sub factors that were used as the basis to rank and classify purpose built offices were grouped under six criteria. In addition, strengths and weaknesses of office classification models currently available in the market, were also addressed and evaluated. This paper also discusses the application of Analytical Hierarchy Process as a rigorous methodology to develop an objective measure of the classification model for the fourty-one purpose built offices undertaken as case studies. The findings of the research illustrated that Analytical Hierarchy Process should be used in order to address the needs of different property market participants. This is because; as observed in the research, Analytical Hierarchy Process is a more practical method than the prevailing current procedures. The importance of influence of specific Malaysian office building attributes on the perception of office tenants on building quality is also discussed. This paper also highlights the findings of comparison carried out between other models and the developed model. The objective is to explain as well as to provide recommendations for the necessary course of actions and to identify the consequential and sub sequential repercussions in applying the new classification scheme and other resources implications. This paper concludes that the newly developed purpose built office classification model provides an improved tool for evaluating office building quality, resulting in a more effective office classification model for application in Malaysia.