Commercial Building, Known "Friend" Tenant

[Rio Tomlin]

Hello BP community!  I'm posing this unique question because it can be cut and dissected so many ways, I'm looking for feedback across the board.  Any thoughts or opinions or comments are more than appreciated!

Friend of mine is looking to open his own business (fitness gym).  I helped him narrow the area which he should be searching.  While driving the neighborhood, I found a For Sale By Owner within the same area, for a corner commercial space.  Free-standing building.  Ideal for his business.  

I love the area for investment and want to buy the space irregardless. However, I'm struggling to decide how to frame the deal. Would like to buy it outright on my own, but want the guarantee that my friend will be leasing the space, a 5/5 year lease. Would be NNN and he would do the renovations to suit his needs. Knowing I have a tenant immediately to do repairs and upgrades is a great insurance policy and won't require me to put out capital to renovate, or a long time vacant, or broker fees to lease.

I don't want any stake in his business, as it would compromise my interests.  I want to rent the space for top dollar, and if I owned part of the business, I could be doing harm to myself in structuring deals.  Would rather just own the property, rent to fitness center from day 1, and go from there.  

Any tips for how to structure the deal up front to get the best of all worlds here?  Anything I should look out for in particular (besides the obvious potential strain on the relationship).  Looking forward to your ideas and creativity in structuring all this!

[Alexander Felice]

just to give another angle of perspective. I am a long time powerlifter (~15 years) and I have looked into gym ownership many times over the years. to give the summarized version of my half a dozen ventures into gym ownership: They just don't make money. some do, obviously, the vast vast majority barely break even. We can go into detail why but lets just assume you take my word for it.

now if your friend has a well established business he is moving over an already successful business it's might be less risk, but even then the business model of a gym is designed that without regular, LARGE capital investments, the membership pool vacates. now if you ignore all that and still want to proceed:

doing business with friends is usually not a good idea, adding to that a business with a low likelihood of success = terrible idea!