All Forum Posts by: Michael K Gallagher

 They best people in town doing this are tommy harr and the guys over at legacy homes.  They have a hell of an operation, and often hold trainings and hire often also.  I'd follow him on IG, and show up to the meetups they host.  

There is a ton of saturation in the cbus market not only here on this platform but with investors in general, its a hot, competitive market, but that also means there are a huge number of garbage operators too, so do your due diligence on who you listen too, but again I can't say enough good things about tommy.  

Honestly its in a solid area right in front of that Walmart, not bad visibility.  The space is smaller than we usually look for and I don't have a use for the elbo, we very rarely can make urgent care work in the elbo of a center like that.  Plus my only guy I have in that market is looking for a single tenant free standing building so unless you wall parcel off some of your parking lot and sell I unfortunately don't think I have anyone.  

The local meetup ideal is always a favorite of mine.

@Jeremiah Cotner have not built something like that personally but the project sounds amazing.  Out of curiosity why did you decide to go with this specific layout?  what about the site itself made that the best path for you?

@Rob Ibarra Converting non restaurant space into restaurant space can be fairly costly from what I understand due to the need for larger than standard water lines to service the building and a general need for grease traps and other restaurant specific infrastructure.

My first question around going from abandoned auto shop to kitchen is zoning, could you even get the use approved, and then are their any environmental factors in play?  I'd certainly recommend doing some kind of environmental study given the chemicals and such that could have been used there but more-so I'd be curious if the city wouldn't have a testing requirement to redevelop.  I don't know, these are just the questions I'd be looking into.

@Charlie Brown, I'm not super familiar with your market specifically but I think this strategy works anywhere:

- Find a boutique, niche, ideally aging broker/brokerage in your market, and start adding value.  If not a brokerage a boutique niche developer/commercial builder would potentially also work to get you the exposure you'd like.

This advise was given to me by a broker I spoke with when I first got into the industry and I wasn't really sure why he gave that advice, however, after somewhat following it, in a round about way, I can say it is by far the best way I can think of to get involved.  If you are curious why, read on, but I'm gonna go into some detail so it might get boring...

So why is this such a good way to get involved?

- Commercial is still very much "behind the times" in that its a "hand shake" and "pick up the phone" kinda biz.  Its a cliche, but it really holds true in Commercial...relationships are king.  Its what get's you deals brought to you, its what gets capital flowing in your direction, and ultimately what creates success.  

-The niche, boutique brokerage is a great target because they are generally slammed with more business than they know what to do with, they generally are still using fax machines and rotary dialers, (i'm only half joking I still see @aol emails all over costar to this day) so it leaves ample opportunity with anyone that can use an crm a chance to add real value and grow the business in a measurable way.

- These tend to be "assassin" type shops who are small teams of pretty elite operators, and they aren't bloated down with BS like the big CRBE's etc of the world, so you'll get exposed to more, you'll get exposed sooner, and they will generally be ideally with a niche industry or product type but will often have a ton of satellite deals they get which will get you cross industry exposure.  and they generally will just teach you to not be a lazy POS like so many are in the industry.

- These generally aren't a hold hands and sit in a circle and talk about your feelings environments (at least from my exposure) but generally they are frank, straight forward, and interested in passing along what they've accumulated in knowlege over the years to the next generation, and oftentimes family isn't too interested.  

- You're probably asking "ok now where do I find one of these shops" I'd start with meetups, specifically for commercial, but you'll likely just be looking for names I doubt the people will actually be there.  You can potentially find some through industry awards in sectors that interest you, and also just from driving around and looking at listing signs, look for ones that aren't a major name, ie, JLL, CRBE, CASTO etc.

I'm always a fan of starting by doing it yourself.  So from that aspect I'd say its a good learning experience, however, with regard to the specific situation of the current people living there thats a good discussion for a local realestate lawyer.  You'll want to understand what kind or notices and documents you need to get executed to either up their rent or turn the unit.

Solid long term tenants are worth their weight in gold in my book so if theres a way to up the rent and keep them happy I's say thats the best route personally.

@Daniel Vroman Rusteen I think there's just a general misunderstanding of the value an agent or local expert brings to the deal that you either do not wish to see or simply don't find value in it.  Which is fine.  But unless you are a market expert and know exactly where the neighborhood cut off, and what a tenant in that area would expect etc, then you'll likely have a hard time without an agent or local rep of some kind.  

from your comments above I also think there's a basic misconception/misunderstanding of fundamentally how negotiation works in the open market, and that again is likely an area an agent can help you. But again if you don't see the value and believe the books you've read are enough then have at it.  

PS the book you read is by david greene not brian green, as a point of clarification.  

depending on what your volumes and stats on that kroger are, and its its actually an OP for that kroger then the .7 is enough for an urgent care to build on.  we work with a multi state operator to find new sites and we generally target .6 - 1 acre for our buildings, but they are single tenant free standing buildings.  We've done buy and builds ourselves or can do BTS's but retail medicine in general has a hard time making the debt on a ground lease work, so if you are looking to do that the medical space is likely not the user for you, but if you were looking to BTS or to sell, its a solid end user to work with.

@Justin Boyd just saw the location on this, I'm somewhat familiar with that market, we do quite a few retail deals in CLE and the surrounding areas, I'd be happy to give you an opinion on the site if its helpful.  

I think there are two maybe 3 ways to look at this in my mind.  

1) you go into it and bring it all up to modern standards but using that old charm to basically take what is there bring it up to modern standards and rent it out essentially I'm thinking cocktail bar or something trendy like that.

2) most banks are on really good centrally located real estate if this is true, then I'd consider it for the dirt, plan to scrape the lot and go vertical with whatever the highest and best use is.

3) a kind of combo of the two, if the lot is in a good location and its doable, pull the vaults or other "character pieces" out of the building, scrape the lot, and build whatever is best suited for the site there, but incorporate those historical pieces into the final designs.

Is the site near a major retail area?  or is this a more historical foot trafic area?  that will dictate the highest and best use for sure.

Whatever you do with it I'd document it because people like seeing the progress when they are sitting in the final project all nice and complete.