A stacking plan is a floor-by-floor visual representation of every tenancy in a multi-tenant office building, showing which tenant occupies which suite on which floor, the square footage of each lease, the lease expiration date, and often the in-place rent. The format is typically a vertical bar chart with each floor as a horizontal band, colour-coded by tenant or by lease expiry year, so that the entire tenancy profile of the building is visible at a glance.
Asset managers, leasing brokers, and lenders all rely on stacking plans because a rent roll spreadsheet contains the same data but lacks the spatial context that drives leasing and risk decisions.
The most important insight a stacking plan provides is contiguous block availability. When a large tenant is searching for 40,000 square feet across two or three contiguous floors, the stacking plan immediately reveals whether the building can accommodate that requirement, either now through existing vacancy or in the near term through upcoming lease expirations that could be combined into a block.
Buildings that can offer large contiguous blocks command premium rents and attract credit tenants that smaller fragmented buildings cannot access, making the stacking plan a strategic leasing tool as well as a reporting document.
Rollover cliff risk is the second critical reading of a stacking plan. When multiple leases expire in the same year, particularly if those leases represent a significant share of the building's total income, the building faces a concentration of re-leasing risk that can impair cash flow projections and covenant compliance.
Lenders reviewing stacking plans during underwriting look specifically for rollover concentration: a building where 40% of its income expires in a single year presents a materially different risk profile from one with evenly staggered expirations. The weighted average lease term (WALT) is the summary metric, but the stacking plan reveals the distribution behind the average.
Leasing strategy is derived directly from the stacking plan. An asset manager reviewing a stacking plan with a large vacancy on floors 12 through 14 and a small tenant on floor 15 whose lease expires next year will often choose not to renew the small tenant in order to assemble a four-floor contiguous block, a decision that sacrifices short-term income for a higher-value leasing outcome.
Similarly, a stacking plan showing that a building's strongest credit tenant is on floors 3 through 6 with a lease expiring in 18 months triggers an early renewal negotiation to de-risk the rollover before it hits the market. These are asset-management decisions that only make sense with the spatial context the stacking plan provides.
A stacking plan is typically drawn as a vertical bar chart, one horizontal band per floor, color-coded by tenant or by lease-expiry year. Each block records the tenant, the suite, the leased area, the lease expiration, and often the in-place rent, so the entire tenancy profile of a multi-tenant building is legible at a glance.
The data is the same as a rent roll, but the format is the point. A spreadsheet lists tenancies; a stacking plan places them in space and time, which is what makes it a working tool for asset managers, leasing brokers, and lenders rather than just a record.
The first thing analysts read is contiguous-block availability. When a large tenant needs, say, three contiguous floors, the stacking plan immediately shows whether current vacancy or near-term expiries can be combined into that block. Buildings that can offer large contiguous blocks command premium rents and reach credit tenants that fragmented buildings cannot.
The second is rollover-cliff risk. When several leases (especially large ones) expire in the same year, the building faces a concentration of re-leasing risk that can impair cash flow projections and covenant compliance. Lenders scan stacking plans for this concentration during underwriting; a building with 40% of income expiring in one year is a very different risk from one with staggered expiries. WALT summarizes the average lease term, but the stacking plan reveals the distribution behind it.
Because it shows space and timing together, the stacking plan directly drives leasing decisions. An asset manager who sees a large vacancy on floors twelve through fourteen and a small tenant on floor fifteen expiring next year may choose not to renew that tenant in order to assemble a four-floor contiguous block, trading near-term income for a higher-value outcome.
The same view flags rollovers to get ahead of. If the building's strongest credit tenant occupies floors three through six with a lease expiring in eighteen months, the plan is the prompt to open an early renewal and de-risk that rollover before it reaches the market. These moves only make sense with the spatial context the stacking plan provides.
A stacking plan is a floor-by-floor visual of a multi-tenant building that shows which tenant occupies which suite on which floor, the leased area, the lease expiration, and often the in-place rent. It is usually drawn as a vertical bar chart color-coded by tenant or expiry year.
It is used to see a building's tenancy, vacancy, and lease-expiry profile at a glance. Asset managers, leasing brokers, and lenders rely on it to spot contiguous-block availability, identify rollover concentration, plan leasing strategy, and support underwriting and asset-management decisions.
A rent roll is a spreadsheet listing each lease and its terms; a stacking plan presents the same information spatially, floor by floor. The stacking plan adds the physical and timing context (where tenants sit and when they roll) that a rent roll's list cannot show at a glance.
Rollover risk is the concentration of lease expirations in a short window. A stacking plan color-coded by expiry year makes it obvious: if a large share of the building's income expires in the same year, the owner faces a re-leasing cliff that can pressure cash flow and loan covenants.
WALT, the weighted average lease term, is a single number summarizing how long, on average, the building's leases run. The stacking plan shows the distribution behind that average, revealing whether expiries are evenly staggered or clustered in a way the WALT figure alone would hide.
Contiguous-block availability is whether a building can offer a large tenant a set of adjoining floors or suites, now or in the near term. A stacking plan reveals it directly, which matters because large contiguous blocks command premium rents and attract credit tenants that fragmented space cannot.
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