Playing prerecorded music in patio and asks for $20 TI

[Courtney Duong]

Hi BP,

Somehow I can’t post this under Commercial category so bear with me.

I manage a retail strip and we just have a vacant this month. This is an end cap unit with drive through and patio. We didn't even lust it yet but already received an LOI for it. Previous Tenant was a coffee shop and this prospective tenant will also be a coffee shop.

There are 2 things on the LOI that I need your input on:

1- prospective tenant is asking to play prerecorded music on patio. We don’t allow this current at our shopping center. Should we allow this now? What are the pros and cons? Our other end cap is a very good restaurant with patio also but we don’t allow this.

2 - they ask for $20/SF in TI. This is a second generation coffee shop and everything is there already (except this will be a different franchise so it’s just cosmetic that they will have to deal with in terms of build out) so $20 in TI seems a little bit steep to me. What do you all think? What should be a reasonable TI to give in this case? How much will you give if it were you?

Thanks!