What should a new CFO review in the company's office lease?

In your first 90 days, pull or build a lease abstract (expiration, options, notice windows, escalations, OpEx structure), test the footprint against actual utilization, and benchmark the economics against the current Denver market. With metro office vacancy at a cycle high (roughly 27% on the major brokerages' Q2 2026 read; 18.5% on the broader all-stock basis) and landlords competing at roughly one month of free rent per year of term, a lease your predecessor renewed quietly a few years ago is probably off-market on net effective terms. If expiration is inside 36 months, the review is urgent, not administrative.

Every new CFO audits the big cost lines in year one. Payroll gets a comp study. Software gets a vendor rationalization. Insurance gets re-quoted.

Occupancy... usually the second or third largest expense on the P&L... gets a glance at the rent line and a shrug.

Here's why that's a mistake. Payroll and software get negotiated every year by someone whose job depends on it. The lease was negotiated once, possibly a decade ago, by someone who no longer works there. It has been escalating 3% a year ever since, in a market that has moved sharply in the other direction. The lease is the one major cost line with no internal owner and no annual pressure test.

That makes it the highest-return audit you'll run this year. Here is the 90-day version I'd walk a new Denver CFO through.

The lease abstract is your foundation, so build it first

You cannot manage what you cannot see, and most companies cannot answer basic questions about their own lease without calling outside counsel. Step one is a lease abstract: a two-page summary of every term that carries money or risk.

If one exists, pull it and verify it against the amendments. If it doesn't, build one. Either way, it needs to capture:

• Expiration date and remaining term. The single most important number in the document.
• Options and their notice windows. Renewal options, termination options, expansion or contraction rights, and the exact dates each one opens and closes. A termination option with a 12-month notice window is worthless if you discover it 11 months out.
• Escalations. Fixed annual bumps, CPI-based, or stepped. Compound 3% escalations against a flat market and the gap widens every year.
• OpEx structure. Full service gross, modified gross, or NNN. Base year, expense stop, and what's excluded.
• Caps and audit rights. Whether controllable operating expenses are capped, and whether you have the right to audit the landlord's annual reconciliation... and for how long after it lands.
• Restoration and surrender obligations. What you're required to remove or restore at expiration. On a heavily built-out space this can be a six-figure liability nobody has accrued for.

This takes a few hours with the lease and its amendments. It's the cheapest risk reduction you'll do all quarter, and it's the document that anchors everything else in this review.

Test the space and the economics against 2026, not against the year the lease was signed

The abstract tells you what you signed. The next two tests tell you whether it still makes sense.

First, test the footprint against reality. The average Denver office lease is now roughly 40% smaller than it was at the 2015 peak, as hybrid work reset utilization on nearly every renewal (SVN | Denver Commercial occupier analysis, June 2026). That's not a trend line. That's a completed repricing of how much space companies actually use.

So ask the blunt question: when was this footprint sized? If the answer predates hybrid work, you are almost certainly carrying space the company doesn't use. Walk the floor on a Tuesday and again on a Friday. Count heads, not badge swipes. Then compare what you see against a current read on how much office space Denver companies actually need per employee. The gap between leased square footage and used square footage is unbudgeted spend, year after year.

Second, test the economics against the market. Denver metro office vacancy sits at a cycle high of roughly 27% on the major brokerages' basis, asking rents are essentially flat at $34.07/SF full service on that same competitive set (down 0.8% year over year), and landlords are competing at roughly one month of free rent per year of term plus elevated TI allowances (CBRE, Q2 2026).

Now hold your lease up against that. If it was signed or quietly renewed in 2019, or 2021, or even 2023, it was priced in a different market. The face rate might look defensible. The concession package almost never does. The gap between what you're paying and what the market is granting shows up in net effective rent, not the headline rate, and that's exactly where a lease nobody has renegotiated goes stale.

One caveat so you benchmark honestly: the 27% is a metro average. The CBD is near 38.6% vacancy while Cherry Creek is tight at 1.8% Class A vacancy with Class A rents near $68/SF (CBRE, Q2 2026). And the soft spots aren't all downtown: LoDo, Broomfield, and Inverness all run well above the metro average on any basis. Your leverage depends on your submarket, your size, and your credit. Benchmark against actual utilization, current concession packages, and comparable deals in your submarket... not against a rule-of-thumb percentage someone quotes you in a board meeting.

The calendar decides how urgent this is, and you don't have to run it alone

Two dates turn this from an administrative review into an active project.

The expiration date. If your lease expires inside 36 months, you're not early. A well-run occupier process in this market takes 12 to 18 months for a space of any size, and your renewal leverage peaks when the landlord believes you have time to leave. Inside 12 months, that belief evaporates and your options narrow to whatever the landlord offers. Inside 36 months, this review is the start of a strategy, not a filing exercise.

The audit window. If the landlord's most recent OpEx reconciliation landed within your lease's audit period, preserve that right now, before it lapses. Reconciliation errors are common enough that a lease audit of your operating expenses is standard hygiene, and the audit right is use-it-or-lose-it. Sending the preservation notice costs you a letter. Losing the window costs you whatever was in it.

Then decide what you own and what you delegate. Own the questions: what does this cost us, what are we using, when can we move, what's our exposure. Delegate the market: current concession packages, comparable deals, landlord financial health, submarket-by-submarket leverage. That's what a tenant rep broker actually does, the landlord's side pays the fee in nearly every Denver deal, and no internal finance team can replicate a live read from someone running active transactions. Keep counsel for what counsel is for: lease language, restoration exposure, and anything you're about to sign.

And here's the part nobody puts in the onboarding packet. The new CFO who walks into the board meeting with a lease abstract, a utilization read, and a market benchmark owns the occupancy conversation from day one. Not because the board expected it... because your predecessor never brought it.

Frequently asked questions

What should a new CFO look for in the company's office lease?

Start with a lease abstract covering the expiration date, renewal and termination options with their notice windows, annual escalations, the OpEx structure (full service, modified gross, or NNN), expense caps and audit rights, and restoration obligations at surrender. Those six items capture most of the money and most of the risk in a commercial lease.

How do I know if my company is paying above market for office space in Denver?

Compare your net effective rent, not your face rate, against current deals. Denver metro asking rents are essentially flat at $34.07/SF full service on the major brokerages' basis, and landlords are granting roughly one month of free rent per year of term plus elevated TI allowances (CBRE, Q2 2026). A lease signed or renewed before this concession environment is likely off-market even if the face rate looks reasonable.

When should a company start working on an office lease renewal?

Start 18 to 36 months before expiration for any meaningful footprint. Your negotiating position rests on a credible ability to relocate, and that credibility takes time to build. Inside 12 months, most alternatives are off the table and the landlord knows it.

Is my office too big if we went hybrid?

Probably. The average Denver office lease is roughly 40% smaller than at the 2015 peak because utilization reset across the market (SVN | Denver Commercial occupier analysis, June 2026). If your footprint was sized before hybrid work, measure actual attendance by day of week before you renew a square foot of it.

Who pays the tenant rep broker's fee?

The landlord's side, in nearly every Denver transaction. Listing agreements build in a commission that gets split with the tenant's broker, so occupier representation typically costs the tenant nothing out of pocket. Unrepresented tenants don't save that fee... the landlord's broker usually keeps it.

You inherited the lease. You didn't inherit the obligation to leave it alone. Ninety days is enough to know what you signed, what you're using, and what the market would give you instead... and in a market running roughly 27% vacancy, that third answer is usually worth real money.

If you've stepped into a CFO or COO seat in the past year and haven't pressure-tested the lease yet, I'll give you a 20-minute read on where your occupancy costs sit against the current Denver market, plus a free lease abstract you can put in front of the board. Schedule a conversation.

About Brian McCririe
Brian McCririe is Executive Managing Director of SVN | Denver Commercial and National Council Chair for Occupier Services across the SVN network. After 25 years representing tenants and investors across global markets, he now focuses on the Denver Metro area helping companies navigate leases, acquisitions, and the gap between what landlords offer and what occupiers deserve. He leads one of the metro's top tenant rep practices and writes about the deals, decisions, and market shifts that matter to corporate real estate leaders.