I need an office, but need a clue as to how to pick one

December 27, 2006 1:44 PM

I need to lease some commercial space. There's

I've finally decided to take the plunge and open my own business. I'm an attorney, so I don't really think I need more than 250-300 square feet starting out.

My problem is that I don't have the first clue as to what to ask agents about each piece of property. I've already read this thread before concerning commercial leasing, and read the article suggested.

The problem is that Joel knew the basics and had an idea of exactly what he needed. I don't. I need help in figuring out what questions to ask and what information I need to know in order to make an intelligent and informed choice in leasing office space.

Also, it would be helpful for any business owners or others to let me know what sort of space they had when the initially set up shop.

Thanks!

posted by reenum to work & money (6 comments total)

At 250-300 square feet, you may be well served by the executive suites industry. Typically you pay around $500/month for a 250-300 sf space in a modern building in the cool part of town. At that rate, you need to rent in blocks of months, but you can also rent space in blocks of time as small as hours. Most executive suite companies have extra offices and conference rooms that you can rent as demand warrants.

You may be able to save some money by signing a multi-year lease with a more traditional building owner, but then you are that much more locked in.

Finally, you may want to consider setting up your office at home, if you have the space.
posted by b1tr0t at 1:53 PM on December 27, 2006

Joel's article covered a *lot* of the questions -- full service vs. not, etc.

What you're looking for is usually called an "executive suite". You won't find many brokers selling them, you're better off finding office parks near where you want to be that present the image you want to present, and then calling the number on the lease sign out front.

When I leased office space, I started out with (literally) a broom closet borrowed for a small amount from a client, and then rented a space in an office building from a local landlord fairly cheaply. I got much better service from a "guy that owned a building" kind of person, who really wanted me in the space and took pains to make it happen, than I did from corporations who were looking to allow me to lease a space.
posted by SpecialK at 2:04 PM on December 27, 2006

If your locale has a "local business news(paper/magazine)" it will almost certainly contain advertisements for all the local executive suites. You almost certainly want an executive suite, if only for:
* reception service
* meeting rooms
* (especially) package-handling service (do you want to miss an important fedex because you had to step out? do you want to have to postpone stepping out while you wait for fedex?).

Questions specific to an executive suite:
* what will I be paying monthly for a space configured as I want (if you don't ask, you'll get the no-frills price)
* reliability of utilities (phone/internet/power/climate/lighting)
* conference room availability: how much lead-in time would you need to be sure of getting a room? (same goes for any other shared facilities: if there's not enough to go around the advantage of having them disappears)
* quality of reception services (perhaps call from payphones at different times of day and see how the service is)
* quality of package handling/frequency of mail delivery
* "hidden fees": with your intended pattern of usage, are there per-use fees that'll ding you (per-printout, per-conference-room-hour, etc.)
* building security
* ease of access outside of normal business hours -- if you want to retrieve some documents 6am saturday, how much hassle will there be
* (gold-medal-worthy): what provisions are in place in case natural disaster (fire, tornado, earthquake) prevents use of the building for an extended period of time
* vacancies and upgrades: how easy will it be to move to a bigger space within the same facility, both in terms of availability and contractual stuff (at a good facility there won't be significant contractual hurdles to upgrading)

It's pretty much the same as renting a high-end apartment: almost everything is (or can be) provided, but you're somewhat dependent on the providers being competent and responsible both during ordinary periods and especially when under duress.
posted by little miss manners at 9:56 PM on December 27, 2006

For such a small office, I would ask other, similarly situated, attorneys for advice. Around here, we have a bunch of small and medium sized landlords downtown who rent space that size for a few hundred a month. A real "office building" will generally cost more.

Where I grew up, the mall had upstairs office space that was fairly reasonably priced.

For that size, at least in this area, I'd be shocked if you had to sign more than a year's lease or pay more than $500 a month for nice space.

My clients often locate in houses in mixed use zoning, banks, actual office buildings, older buildings with office space, strip malls, and most any other rentable space. In your line of work, all you really need is one or two rooms and a shared bathroom, so it's pretty easy to find cheap space. You don't really need frontage or a nice office building, and you could easily use some other professional's extra space.

In your case, a strong possibility is renting space with/from another attorney. Lots of them have more space than they need. Several of my clients have done that at one time or another.

I'd leave the executive suites to the times you need to rent their conference room to impress someone. If you expect your client base to just be the average joe, they'll be impressed by virtue of your being a lawyer. ;)

If you want to be big time corporate counsel, or do estate planning and that sort of thing, you might need to think bigger, but most of the lawyers I know don't do that sort of work, so keep themselves in relatively modest accommodations.

If you live in a small city with a nice downtown, the space above the shops or on the nearby streets can be surprisingly inexpensive.

(Sorry for the rambling, I'm awful at organizing my thoughts)
posted by wierdo at 12:47 AM on December 28, 2006

Thanks, wierdo and miss manners.

I think that after reading all of this, an office share with an attorney might be the best way to go. I have looked at office suites, and decided that having my own space and answering my own phones is the way to go right now.

I've been doing a bit of reading on the topic, and the main issues to look for in space seems to be the shared charges (CAM, taxes, maintenance) and the per square foot rate for the space.

I have gotten some idea of what I should be asking for here. So, thanks for the helpful advice.

This thread is not closed by any means, so if anyone else has some good advice, please post it.
posted by reenum at 5:42 AM on December 28, 2006

Do you have a local entrepreneur's group? You might be able to meet someone in another office line of work who would be interested in sharing space/expenses.
posted by mrbugsentry at 10:22 AM on December 28, 2006