Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Chris O'Connor on February 23, 2008 at 1:14pm

You might see about contacting a Tenant's Agent which is the equivalent of a Realtor for commercial spaces. They will be able to help you identify potential locations as well as apply their professional judgement on the appropriateness of the asking price for the lease. They may even be able to help you negotiate the lease.

We found our space by ourselves in a new strip mall being built near the side of town we live on. We like the building but if we had it to do over would be considerably more selective and would probably not be the first in a building or in a "developing" area. We have been open 21 months and are still trying to hang on as the rest of the building and the surrounding area develop.

With any location you find be sure it is both highly visible and easily accessable. Good luck as the big playes in this industry and every other industry are looking for the same thing. We settled for an off-street strip mall and it was the worst thing we could have done. Noone knows we are there which means we have to try and fit our marketing efforts into making people know we are there. Not impossible but really much harder than if you have visibility in your favor right from the start.

My recommendation is to keep looking until you find the right spot. You may want to read the article in I think it was the February issue of Fresh Cup that talked about unusual locations. One guy opened at the city landfill and has been doing very well. I thought it was interesting because I have thought of that myself before.

Permalink Reply by Amelie & Barb on February 27, 2008 at 3:43pm

Driving, driving and driving some more!Besides all that driving around, I looked for commercial spaces for rent on Craig's list, newspaper, took maps and highlighted areas where I thought I could attract the market I was looking for. If you're going to go for a tenant reprensatitive, your best bet is with someone local and not the "big" national commercial brokers. I contacted a few myself, and one dididn't really care about us, probably because we're too small, and the other one couldn't help us because they were in a contract with Starbucks! Good Luck!

Permalink Reply by Amelie & Barb on February 28, 2008 at 4:59am

Yeah, She was representing a commercial space I was interested in, after it fell through, I asked her if she could represent us and help us find a spot since I really enjoyed working with her. She told me that her company had a long "commitment" with Starbucks and that it would be conflicting with Starbucks interests.

Permalink Reply by Amelie & Barb on March 3, 2008 at 8:48am

Pittsburgh.

Permalink Reply by Helena Griffith on March 6, 2008 at 8:16pm

Contact your Chamber of Commerce. Often there is someone designated to filling spaces or they know of spaces soon to be vacant.

Permalink Reply by Tom C on May 16, 2008 at 5:22am

It's been a while since the last reply to your question, but here's a couple of points that helped us (11 stores).

What are you relying on? If it's morning commute traffic, you need the highest flow you can find, and you want that flow on YOUR side of the street. Municipalities in our area (Northeast) have traffic studies to help with this. We set a minimum of 11,000 cars/day for the stores that relied on this kind of flow. If it's sit-and-stay, you're looking for libraries, colleges, retirement communities, etc. that can provide you foot traffic.

Definitely explore alternative sites. We did a minor league baseball stadium, a submarine base, a high-end marina, and a local art gallery. All of them had unique partnership arrangements, and they turned out to be our most successful sites.

Good luck!