As I said before, this store was part of a in-line strip center. “Each has it’s own entrance and glass frontage”… means they cut holes for doors and windows in the wall facing the parking lot and gave each unit it’s own storefront, creating interior walls to seperate them.
If it were a free-standing box, they would have used a “mini-mall” format… retaining and using the existing entrance, while dividing the interior into seperate rental spaces with common area connecting them.
Posted by Bill Taylor on April 16, 2005 at 15:39:57:
Ray what do you think of doing a Big Box rehab and dividing it up for smaller stores. Do you need the one big anchor or can a shopping center survive located with other stores of similiar size? I am thinking of looking seriously at a old K-mart or Walmart or poss an old empty grocery store and converting that one large store into a strip center.
Posted by ray@lcorn on April 20, 2005 at 16:33:39:
Bill,
Adaptive re-use of big-boxes is becoming a growth industry. The biggest physical problem is that the stores are typically much deeper than required for a standard in-line strip space (~60 ft.). The box is typically anywhere from 200’ to 400’ deep, so that leaves a lot of wasted space if you just cut up the storefront.
Ideas abound for how to utilize all the space: use the rear space for a separate use (e.g., mini-storage as suggested below); create a mini-mall with interior storefronts; create a second “front” by installing storefronts in the rear wall; and the most radical idea I’ve heard (but not seen) is to take out 60’-75’ of the center of the building… then put store fronts down each side with parking in the middle. With the right tenant mix this can turn an empty box into the current hot product… a lifestyle center.
Other sites have been redeveloped into residential use… that requires the box be torn down, but often the property can be purchased for the cost of the land if there is no lease in place.
Any of the solutions requires a market. Make sure you understand the local demographics and supply/demand factors before pulling the trigger on a contract.
We had a K-Mart shut down when Wal-Mart came to a small town near me. It was a in-line strip with 2 smaller rental spaces on either end. The K-Mart portion of the building sat empty for approximately 10 years… until someone bought it recently and sectioned it up into smaller units (and repaved the parking lot).
Posted by Bill Taylor on April 20, 2005 at 22:22:57:
This looks to be an exciting and very risky opportunity in todays market. I have been a investor for 25 years now and have amassed quite a few deals. I now have an opportunity due to many houses being sold now to have the cash that I never have had til now. I now would like to have property that I don’t have to mow the yards and take calls of repairs and and concern myself with the riskiness of low income housing. Thanks for the advice I hope you come to the site more often so I can run some things past you from time to time. I bought you programs at the seminar and look very forward to reading about your keen insights.
Filled it in 2 months… WOW, I’m interested to hear where this was, so I can compare the market to my area. Do you have anymore details on what they did to the place? There’s a huge building here that would suffice for such a conversion in an excellent location.
Posted by Bill Taylor on April 16, 2005 at 22:09:39:
Seems like these things are all over the place and no one has come up with a way to make them profitable. Sounds like someone may have figured that there is an opportunity. You would have to have funding available but these properties could become productive assets again I think. Now where would you get tenants for them since that is the key to everything here.
Posted by ray@lcorn on April 21, 2005 at 09:31:47:
Bob,
I’ll give you the all-in-one answer to every real estate question… it depends. Each case is unique, and as such you’ll have to evaluate the site, the building and the market to determine what may work.
The “end” tenants were a Subway franchise and a Revco drugstore (then another drug chain who’s name escapes me at the moment that aquired Revco, then a video store and now I think it’s a dollar store).
The “new” tenants are a real estate office, a rent-to-own company, a chinese buffet, a franchise music store (cd’s/dvd’s), etc.
Each has it’s own entrance and glass frontage… and as I said before, they paved the parking lot… that was it.
Population - 15,000… and it’s the county seat, SouthEast Indiana about halfway between Indy and Louisville.
They also make for good canidates for conversion to climate-controlled storage.
Personally, I’m waiting for someone to try one as a high-end car dealership with a massive indoor showroom and repair center.
FWIW, where I grew up (Long Island, NY), there was a defunct department store that was taken over by an indoor flee market. It also has a large and popular jewelery exchange. It has been there for a long time, so it must be reasonably successful. An abandoned big box would be good for this.
How are they given their own entrance and glass frontage? Is it as trivial as framing a wall right down the middle and adding a space for a door? Also, I often see big box stores where most of the frontage isn’t glass, it’s stucco. Only the entrance doorway areas are glass. Are these suitable as is, or must you take down the entire front wall and replace it with glass?