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cainbv
29th September 2001, 05:59
Hi all,

I've been looking around at commercial spaces, and the price per square foot
has been between 13 and 15 dollars for a 1200 sf place. Is this the norm? Can anyone give
me some tips on where to look for space to rent? A 1200 sf place
works out to about 15k per month!!! That is alot of money!! Is
it that I might be adding things up wrong? Any help would be great. I really don't have any
experience with leasing commercial space. Thanks in advance

Brian Cain

Aaron Fields
29th September 2001, 06:50
The dollar amount ($13/15 per foot) is for the whole year. So a $12 dollar a sq ft is 1 buck per sq ft per month. If you are in the Seattle area those rates are not bad.

cainbv
30th September 2001, 23:44
Does anyone know anything about triple net leases? One space I'm
looking at is asking for $11 sf plus $3.21 sf for the triple net lease. Is this
$3.21 the yearly cost that is payed directly to the owner yearly?

Brian Cain

John Lindsey
1st October 2001, 03:13
BTW, don't forget to ask for a few months free. It never hurts to ask. Do some research and see how long the place has been empty. Also, don't get suckered into paying extra fees. Make em an offer and move on if it doesn't work out. Don't ever fall in love with a location either :).

Robert Wolfe
1st October 2001, 17:01
When we negotiated the lease for our dojo, we offered very close to what the landlords were asking on a square foot basis, but requested that the rate be all-inclusive rather than triple-net.

They accepted, so our monthly payment is fixed, and includes everything associated with the facility: rent, utilities, heat and A/C, snow removal, taxes, lawn maintenance, etc. The only thing we specified as not included are janitorial services, since we much prefer to do the cleaning and sprucing-up ourselves.

Our dojo is in the (exposed) basement of an office building, so the landlords expected the only likely use for the space would be as storage. The building is owned by a construction company (to house its own offices), and the job they did building the dojo to our specs was outstanding.

-- Bob Wolfe

shinbushi
1st October 2001, 18:01
I got mine under a buck a square foot only no additional fees. (but they can raise rent after the 2nd year).

Jeff O
2nd October 2001, 21:12
We are subleasing our dojo space from the owner of the building, which cut out the middleman (broker and real estate/rental management company). Because of this, our square footage is more than what we pay per month.

The cons are if the owner ever sells the building, it's back to the local park.

Our first dojo was in a basement of an urgent care, and it worked out great. Cool all year round, very low overhead, and low insurance.

Hope this helps!

cainbv
3rd October 2001, 01:51
When we negotiated the lease for our dojo, we offered very close to what the landlords were asking on a square foot basis, but requested that the rate be all-inclusive rather than triple-net.


When you negotiated, did you go through the leasing agent at all?
How did you find out who the landlord was? I want to make leasing
a space as painless as possible since it's my first time renting
commercial space.

Jeff O
3rd October 2001, 02:14
Hi Brian,


Originally posted by cainbv



When you negotiated, did you go through the leasing agent at all?
How did you find out who the landlord was?

What we did initially was to look for buildings that said "space for rent", but did not have a management company name on them. Many of the places in Dayton have signs saying for lease/rent, and then say "Contact the XYZ Management Company". We continued to look until we found a place that had a sign simply saying "for rent".

When we did find a space that was empty, we would go to one of the rented spaces (especially in a strip mall) and ask for the manager or owner of a store that was being leased. Then we would ask if they knew who owned the entire building. Nine times out of ten, the tenant would give us the name and number of the owner, even if there was a sign that indicated you had to go through a lease company.

Business is business, so we acted like it was - even though we opened the dojo more as a club than anything else. I firmly believe in asking for the world, and seeing what you get - the answer is always "no" until you ask. In the end, we went through four places, and finally found an owner that was willing to take a risk on us, as long as we signed a two year commitment.

Good luck, and feel free to ask more questions!

Jeff O.

Robert Wolfe
4th October 2001, 01:26
In our case, a listing agent was involved, so the negotiations were conducted through him.

We had spent years checking for spaces we could afford -- both properties listed through agents and otherwise -- before we found our dojo.

One thing that helped the actual negotiations a lot was the fact the dojo had been incorporated for several years (primarily for the liability protection incorporation provides) and we could prove financial resources by means of tax returns.

keithpenner
6th October 2001, 16:55
Originally posted by cainbv
Does anyone know anything about triple net leases? One space I'm
looking at is asking for $11 sf plus $3.21 sf for the triple net lease. Is this
$3.21 the yearly cost that is payed directly to the owner yearly?

Brian Cain

Triple net lease expenses are generally provided as estimates. Depends on the landlord as to whether or not they estimate high or low.

It also depends on the landlord as to where the payments go. In my NNN lease (not a dojo), I pay utilities directly, building insurance & snow removal goes to the landlord. Be sure to ask the landlord if there are any management fees. This is essentially a surcharge on your psf rent. I forget who actually cuts the government the real estate taxes.

John Lindsey pointed out that you should ask for a few months free. Do this. It is quite common on commercial leases to grant a few months for "build out".

With the caveat that I know absolutely nothing about the Bellingham real estate market, you should probably be able to do better than $13-15 NNN. I am in the suburban Washington DC area. I was able to get a rate of $11 NNN for a warehouse space. I could have done better, but for business reasons I needed to be picky about location/facilities. In this area, office space leases for $25-31 IG (industrial gross, or all inclusive).

I found going through a real estate broker a great help.