What would you want in a small (2-3 van) shop?

[Desk Jockey]

Something like this maybe? Its not to scale. Extra garage door and exta walk through. But opening the two garage doors in the summer will allow for a breeze. You may also get by with the garage unfinished and using an overhead heater for heat.

Gravel in the garage pour the floor a little at a time. ???

 

[HydroDude]

you better get your shit together before entering or existing Richard 's office...

 

[Desk Jockey]

lol That way you can enter from either direction. Easier to shit can people.

 

[Russ T.]

For 300000 I would build a multi-tenant structure with at least 3 or more suites for a total of 3-4 total areas all with bathrooms and separate doors but keeping in mind to make it moduler and easily reconfigurable.

You can never have too many bathrooms.

Have your renters pay the mortgage plus.

We have considered building a new house with shop for that kind of cash but wouldn't be advancing the value of the business as much.

 

[Russ T.]

View attachment 69300
Something like this maybe? Its not to scale. Extra garage door and exta walk through. But opening the two garage doors in the summer will allow for a breeze. You may also get by with the garage unfinished and using an overhead heater for heat.

Gravel in the garage pour the floor a little at a time. ???

That could work really well!

I hadn't thought of having a separate office and reception but I think I'd definitely want that.

 

[SamIam]

Or build something that you can structure to rent part of the space out until your ready to expand.

 

[dealtimeman]

I believe for anything at the 300000 range you should build a multi tenant.

BUT now that I think about it, I wouldn't put too much money into making it reconfigurable as I would just let the " market" push me into buying or building another building once I needed to grow/more space and rent out the space I was originally occupying in, on this first building, as it would make more dollars and sense.

What do you rent your current space for? Size / month?

Just need to be careful not to get too overzealous as you see how good ( money/time invested) it is to be a landlord for multi tenant-1000 to 2000 sqft of warehouse space, not like an apartment or a house that requires more " work/time".

For the future it will be very wise investment if warehouse space is "needed" in your market.

We sure ain't going to get wealthy from carpet cleaning. Might as well be "paying" your self for rent instead of paying someone else.

 

[Doug Rice]

Heated Floor. Will save yo money for years to come.

 

[Chris A]

There's no existing commercial buildings for sale around you for less than that? I just bought a 6200 square foot office/warehouse in Akron OH (good neighborhood too), for 120k. It does need some work but nowhere near 300k. Have you looked around? You could sell the lot you have for a down payment?

 

[Cleanworks]

Wow, that's a great deal Chris. You can do a lot with kind of sqft.

 

[Russ T.]

I live in a very small town of about 3000 people. I'm not sure how many big spaces would be in demand. Right now, the plumber and the electrician are in the same strip as me. Both of them are a 1 man show and appear to be thriving in the small communities around me.

My town is in very close proximity to Ames. It's a very large college town, home to Iowa State (Go Cyclones). You may know them from the recent years of DEEP appearances in the NCAA basketball tournament. Ames is 9 miles north.

The largest and northernmost suburb of Des Moines is just 10 miles south of us. Most of our residential business comes from Ankeny.

 

[Desk Jockey]

They have a basketball team? Damn, they will let anyone play now days!

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Say hello to coach Prohm, a very good guy you got from Murray State.

We cleaned for him several time before I told Jon who he was.

 

[Desk Jockey]

He's a great coach.

Who is winning Saturday Lee? We looked awful yesterday.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

UK lost to (ugh) Tennessee Tuesday...so expect a brutal rebound.

 

[Russ T.]

ISU has become one of the premier basketball programs in the nation. Very solid organization.

 

[rick imby]

I would design a strip mall for 2nd tier businesses. All Drive through (Garage door front and back potentially) with a small office in the front. Leave room in front of the building for parking facing the street and facing the building.

The tenants I would go after would be auto repair, Quick lube, Rug Shop, Bicycle Shop, Beautician, gun Store, Sandwich shop, Pizza shop, Bar, fitness center, car stereo, small grocery. The lowest rent you get per square foot is from electricians, carpet cleaners, etc for vehicle storage--not the market I would go after. Light retail traffic business locations get the best rent.

Get the design done and build your unit first and add on modules when you can get more money.

Or build out the whole thing as storage rental (it is a little small) with the area you are going to use as the facility office and your truck storage.

The classic auto repair building has front and rear doors with a small office in the angle off the front with three angle in stalls. Build one of those and it will never be empty.

Once you get the whole design done start landscaping the whole thing. Do you have an alley on the back of one side to drive onto from the back doors?

 

[Russ T.]

We met with a construction company again on Thursday. We've scaled the size back form 40x80 to 40x40. It sounds like the price will be more than cut in half but we're waiting to hear back.

I think 40x40 is a pretty modest sized building that we can accomplish A LOT with. The "rough draft" was pretty similar to what Chavez drew up. We can fit 3 vans in or our travel trailer in the Winter, along with 2 vans. A trench drain in the center of the garage will be great for washing the vans off at the end of a day.

It will be great to have a physical location that we can get on Google Maps and maybe offer rug washing in the future.

 

[bob vawter]

when i built my shop 30X40 behind the house the city would not let me have a drain......HA

i went ahead and built the system.......
then put a coffee can over the drain and poured the concrete....
got my city approval...
THEN chipped out the coffee cans....

 

[jwfoulk12]

I built my shop back in 02. It is a 30x40 with 2 10x10 doors. If I had it to do over again I would either put a second floor on or at least Attic trusses. The shell of my steel building back then only cost me 15G. Till it was insulated, wired, and concrete I hadd 22 in it. I have drains in the middle of each bay as well as a drain on each side that I can dump into. You will never have enough space so build as big as you can or at least design it so that its easy to add on bays later if you want.

 

[Desk Jockey]

when i built my shop 30X40 behind the house the city would not let me have a drain......HA

i went ahead and built the system.......
then put a coffee can over the drain and poured the concrete....
got my city approval...
THEN chipped out the coffee cans....

We had to put in a separator pit in both of our garages for them to allow floor drains.

 

[Desk Jockey]

You will never have enough space so build as big as you can or at least design it so that its easy to add on bays later if you want.

So true Justin. We put 4 additions on to this building.
We can't add on anymore, anything else has to be free standing.

 

[Russ T.]

We had to put in a separator pit in both of our garages for them to allow floor drains.

There does have to be a filter installed here too.

 

[Mark Saiger]

We built our current shop.

Family built it

We installed slab and did the prep work.

Went 2 cement blocks high and actually bought a 3 stall Menards garage package that they delivered to our sight.

Did the wiring, but in furnace with hood on top of it that heats the place.

Installed back up electric base board heaters just in case furnace where to go out.

Full bathroom, OSB put on the walls and just primed white paint (easier to hang things in)

10 foot high insulated doors, 12 foot high ceilings. Bit of storage in the rafters enclosed.

We have about $30,000 even with labor I had to sub out.

We had a small garage (16 x22) that was on site we tagged onto.

Just putting up some videos you can see some of the current shop

 

[Mark Saiger]

Russ T... Get your Butt up North this year and look it over.

We have a lake... And I need a reason to use it more!

 

[ronbeatty]

My son just built a 40x64 pole barn shell with concrete floor and a 10 ft apron for $35,000. Insulation and skinning the inside would be about $20,000 more. It is a nice looking building and very well built.
Check with Morton Buildings, they have a building lease that enables you to expense the building in 20 years instead of 31.

 

[Cleanworks]

We had to put in a separator pit in both of our garages for them to allow floor drains.

Oil separator?

 

[Russ T.]

Oil separator?

Yes

I think

 

[Able 1]

I'm not sure you have or haven't went through with this Russ.. A store front can be very appealing, but if I were you I would build to that point before the move(three vans imo).. I would look into a house with some land that you could build what you want.

When a guy like Ken Snow says he thinks it's cheating for guys to run out of their houses, I want to continue to cheat!! Think about the set up you could have for that extra $200,000 in a house!! This is just my opinion and I have thought about it for a while..

 

[Russ T.]

I'm not sure you have or haven't went through with this Russ.. A store front can be very appealing, but if I were you I would build to that point before the move(three vans imo).. I would look into a house with some land that you could build what you want.

When a guy like Ken Snow says he thinks it's cheating for guys to run out of their houses, I want to continue to cheat!! Think about the set up you could have for that extra $200,000 in a house!! This is just my opinion and I have thought about it for a while..

I appreciate that advice man. I've definitely not gone through with this yet. I learned that I'm a strong "C" in the DISC profile and that explains some of my cautious nature.

I like to turn things over about 600 bizillion times in my head before landing on the "right" decision, especially HUGE decisions that have the potential to affect my legacy (for better or worse). I've got a wife and 2 sons that need me to be careful here.

The bids I received are well high, for what I'm comfortable with. I talked to a couple guys here in St. Pete that convinced me that I'd be getting raped at these prices.

It's a pretty simple project that I could be General Contractor on, if my town will allow it. Potential to shave a lot of money off the cost...

Lots more homework to do.

You're suggestion of considering an acreage is a good one and will be explored more fully after I decompress a little from another awesome Mikey's Fest.