Big Ambitions A1 vs A2: What the Building Codes Mean

When you browse rentals in VoogleMaps, every listing shows a code next to the square footage — A1, A2, C1, D2 and so on. A Steam forum thread once asked whether these matched New York’s real building classification. The developer’s answer was short: they indicate the building’s style and layout. Nothing more, nothing less.

A1 vs A2 Side by Side

Those figures are from the community wiki’s building table and are confirmed by the BiggerAmbitions building database, which lists 62 A1 addresses and 56 A2 addresses across the city, every one at a customer capacity of 15 and none with a parking zone.

In other words: for rent, capacity and traffic purposes, A1 and A2 are interchangeable. Pick whichever has the higher traffic index. In that same database, A1 units run from a traffic index of 10 to 51 and A2 units from 10 to 54, so the spread within each code is far larger than any difference between them.

Where the Two Codes Cluster

The fan database shows a mild geographic split. A1 units are concentrated in the Garment District (24 of 62) and Industry City (16); A2 units are concentrated in Industry City (21 of 56), with Hell’s Kitchen, Murray Hill and the Garment District sharing most of the rest. Both codes appear in Midtown, Lower Manhattan and the Hamptons in small numbers. If you are hunting a specific layout for a saved blueprint, that tells you which neighborhood filters to try first. See map and neighborhoods.

The One Thing the Code Changes: Blueprints

Blueprints are tied to the building code, not to the business type or the floor area. The wiki is explicit: an A1 blueprint cannot be used on an A2 building. Same size, same capacity — different shape — no transfer.

This is the only reason to care which of the two you rent. If you have already built a layout you like in an A1 and want to clone it, rent another A1. If you download a community blueprint from the Steam Gallery or Workshop, check its code before signing a lease. How the blueprint system works, and why capacity-bearing furniture matters more than floor area, is in blueprints and layouts.

Don’t Confuse A2 With A3

A3 is the office version of the small footprint: also 75 m², but an office layout with a customer capacity of 4. The wiki lists it separately from the retail A-codes, and the fan database shows it as a rare code with a single listed address. Patch notes treat the three together — a fix to let exit signs sit above the door covered “A1 / A2 / A3 buildings” — but you cannot run a retail store in an A3.

How the Small Codes Fit the Rest of the Ladder

The jump from A to C triples the floor area and doubles the capacity, which is why A-units are the right first store and the wrong fifth one. A 15-per-hour ceiling is easy to fill with a single cash register (capacity 20) and a few shelves; it is also the reason a well-run A1 plateaus early. Once you are maxing the capacity every hour, the next move is a C1 or C2, not a second A-unit.

Two Patch-Note Footnotes

Two entries in the changelog history mention these codes by name and explain a couple of old complaints. An early-access fix allowed exit signs above the door in A1, A2 and A3 buildings, and a later one fixed the inability to reach a 100% interior design score in certain buildings, A1 and A2 among them. If you are on a current build, neither should still bite; if you are reading an old forum thread complaining about small-unit design scores, that is what it was about. See interior design.