I am seeing more and more vacant industrial buildings and warehouses in my area. There isn’t much demand for them right now, and the prices are reflecting that. I would like to find a way to capitalize on them, but I am not optimistic about the possibility of renting them to traditional tenants. Does anyone have creative ideas for uses on these types of buildings, or any ideas in how to attract tenants? My back ground is in single family and multifamily rentals, so commercial is new to me. I do like to be a contrarian IF it makes sense to do so, so these things have really caught my attention lately.
I’ve seen warehouses turned into bars/clubs.
There’s tonnes of uses for them. I’ve seen one empty warehouse in my area turned into an expo centre for trade shows. The ceilings were so high that they even rented it out to Conklin carnies for an indoor amusement park with amusement rides for two weeks. Another one was turned into a large indoor paintball arena. Another one was turned into a secured warehouse to store custom cars and sailboats over the winter. Another one was an indoor flea market. Another one was turned into an indoor art centre where artists rent booths for their artwork by the month (like the Gibraltor Trade Center in Detroit).
If you have a lot of capital, I’ve seen developers demolish half of it and had a construction crew turn it into a plaza. You can turn it into a mall. I’ve seen developers make good money at it, but it’s a lot of work. I’ve seen guys with tonnes of cash turned them into loft condos (the Brownfield site approvals from the city and the Ministry of the Environment alone were pretty expensive though).
Don’t expect it to be turnkey like a plaza on triple net leases with tenants doing all the work. If you think you’re gonna have a realtor post a “for lease” sign and get it rented turnkey and making a profit, you’re most likely fooling yourself. You’re gonna have to be the one who sets up the trade shows or paintball arena or markets auto storage and be there 24/7 to provide sales, service and security for the building unless you can afford a support staff.
I really like the ideas I have seen so far. Any others?
Hi,
I thinks Reuse is the best option and you can use it to rent it for storage purpose or any other else you can sell it to get a new good one.
Indoor flea market. Break it up into small spaces and rent it out on a daily or weekly basis.
The Drop Shipping business is one that is creating the vacancies, but the ideas mentioned are good ideas…but just as drop shipping cuts down on wharehouse use some compnaies that have major inventory may want to use your space if they knew it was available…
If there is a large population and you’ve got capital, turn it into commercial kitchens that rent by the hour.
People trying to start up small food businesses (bakeries, catering) can’t afford to install a commercial kitchen, so they rent one for maybe 6 hours a week.
The kitchens will be rented 24 hours a day and there are several complete kitchen set-ups with individual storage for each client.
In a bad economy, small business start-ups are very common as people who have lost their job try to make a living, so it shouldn’t be hard to find clients.
Well we turned one of our warehouses into a 3-day-a-week car boot sale during the morning and a secure parking zone for a fee in the evening for the local stadium when an event/game is on. Does require some work and advertising but it can work out pretty well!
Hi,
You can hire a good agent because agent can send you listings directly from MLS that fit your parameters, and you won’t waste time looking at active short contingent listings that are under contract.
depending on where you are and how much $$$ you have to drop you can consider a Pods self storage franchise or possibly converting into self storage on your own.
Also I hear they’ve made leaps and bounds in the indoor marijuana growing indusry. :biggrin
Indoor archery range.
Would that make enough money to even cover the property taxes? I used to be a member of a sportsman club with an indoor gun range and archery range. They were loosing serious money on it and if it wasn’t for the attached licensed restaurant/nightclub subsidizing it the place would have gone under a long time ago.
davewindsor,
That’s great, a nightclub with a gun range right next door! I can only imagine what city that was in! :bobble
There was also a smoking area…it was call Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
Keith