I’m a bit confused here: people are saying that rent is $10/sf, which I assume means per square foot. By my calculations, $10/sf x 3000sf = $30,000 a month, not $3000!
Is the cost $10 per square foot or $1 per square foot?
How do we figure out if we can afford the rent?
That’s an interesting one - good find! Will add it to the spreadsheet.
That means $10/sq ft/year - i.e. $10/12 per month. I have no idea why they list things that way.
The final price is usually the $10 ‘base rent’ plus $X in taxes and operating costs (commercial leases are ‘tripple net’, which means everything gets passed on to the lessor) - so we can only afford it if ($base + $additional) * sq ft / 12 is reasonable.
So in @ccudahy’s example here is the listing:
Unit D is 3,609 sf, lease rate $6.95, taxes and operating costs is $5.10.
That means the lease is 3,609 * 6.95 / year (25118.64) and operating is 3,609 * 5.10 / year (18405.90)
Add them up and you get 43525/year or 3627/month
Most places will just advertise their lease rate but not the operating costs, some operating costs can include hydro/gas and i’ve seen them range from $4-$10 alone.
For reference, on IRC last night someone got me to dig up utilities numbers for the Bunker. From memory, electricity was about $1025 for four billing periods (8 months), and gas was $40 for September. I vaguely recall gas being a couple hundred during the cold snap last January.
Here is ‘an’ ‘idea’
I’ve reached out to the City who is on the lookout for us. They may have some spaces.
I’ve also reached out to a family friend who is a VP at Colliers international… they are one of the largest commercial real estate firm internationally… He said that they could help us out.
I think it would be good to have a Realtor formally representing our side for us on our the search. They will also ensure the lease agreements are legit so we don’t have any future issues.
Would anyone have any issues if we had a representative from Colliers helping us? I don’t believe it requires an exclusive agreement… but informally we would look to them outside of our own efforts and to ensure our lease agreement is legit.
Sounds good. Having formal representation on our end has no cost to us and gives us that legal advisory we need when signing a lease. I’ll loop you in on what the details are.
Would be good to know who our official point person on the search should be…
Hey all,
Just because we get a lot of questions, I’ve been asked to introduce the ad-hoc committee members.
The current committee consists of:
We also have had @Jarrett and @JohnC join from the sidelines for feedback and (financial) input.
Have questions, suggestions, food sponsorship, etc? Feel free to contact me!
I should note that the grandview renfrew can be leased as 1900, 2400 or 4448sqf If interested can negotiate to lower lease price.
3600 month, 3yr lease term.
Within 1 block 3min walk from Renfew, 2830 Grandview Hy
Transit Zone 1
Thanks @tdwebste, we’ll follow up with that one.
The items that stand out is the zoning (C-1) and being on the 2nd floor. Do you happen to know if hydro and heat is included in the op costs?
Also well our let side our goal area, but not implausible
thx, I will relay this and see if I can get more leads.
please don’t take that wrong; I was out to dinner with family and made a terse post. We are trying primarily to keep it in the same area, secondarily within walking distance of a “Zone 1” skytrain station. The consensus is/was that Burnaby was considered too far away, despite most of the Space Committee being Burnaby residents 
Np, I am not sure you seen my full posting. Discourse tends to leave email uses, uninformed.
By the way
Within 1 block 3min walk from Renfew, 2830 Grandview
Transit Zone 1
Yup. So it is within our fallback tier (for lack of a better term) and cesium sounds affordable. It has been add ed to the list of sites to research and I'll follow up on it this week unless someone else on the committee beats me to it. Thanks!
I am putting you in touch with a good friend of mine, Jason.
Please let me know who will be contacting him, so that I can properly introduce you. He is a very loyal person and very well connected.
Attached are 4 spaces that seem to meet the basic requirements.
Take the LR in the upper right corner add the lease operating cost, multiply by the square feet, divide by 12 to get the monthly rate
Jason will work to negotiate terms and price on interested properties.