How To Select A Prime Real Estate Location

One of the advantages of working with Elevated Brands, our brands’ management and development company, is our strong knowledge and expertise as it relates to selecting your Gents Place location.  When you come through training with us after signing a franchise agreement, you will be fully briefed about the fundamentals of location selection both in general and as it applies to your specific locality.  What we will do in today’s article is take a brief overview of some of the principles you should keep in mind throughout that process.

Go Beyond the Statistics

It’s a commercial real estate agent’s job to sell you on all the pros of the space and the location.  Your attitude should be “trust, but verify” not just for the actual space itself, but for the location and neighborhood too.  You should spend some time in and around the site and analyze the traffic patterns.  If a location is difficult to get into, for example, customers can sometimes give up which results in missed revenue for the business.  Feel free to go into other businesses and ask to talk to the owners/managers and get some casual information about the property and their experience within that location.

Get the Lease Right

There are few things as important as the lease for a retail business.  Landlords (and properties) come with their own particular idiosyncrasies so there is no “one size fits all” lease, but there are a few key issues you should always keep at the forefront of your mind when reading (and rereading, many times) your lease:

• What’s included?  Is additional visibility in signage, such as a landmark sign, included or a separate charge?  What about utilities?
• What’s the determinant of the rent?  It is always wise to avoid things like revenue percentage leases, no matter how attractive it looks at the beginning.  Make sure that there is a clear process and time interval for how rent is increased.
• What build-out/improvement costs are included?  If you do some improvements on your own, what is the process you have to go through in order to make them, and will the landlord give you credit for them at the end of your lease?

Look for Complements

Just as a health food store would love to be located near a gym, Gents Place locations could benefit from complementary businesses nearby.  A gym or a men’s clothing store are examples of places that men who want to look and feel good already visit. But, so would a health food store, actually.  Think about connecting threads (fine liquor or cigars) and be careful that you’re not a victim of confining your thinking when you sit down to brainstorm collaborative possibilities.

Do you want to start the process of finding the right location for a Gents Place you’d like to own? Click here to start the process.