Thanks Ron Cook

Ottumwa is a big meat packing town, Fairfield is small college town, Riverside has a casino, Amana/Kalona are Amish areas.Biggest issues in that area I would think would be proximity to jobs and meth.  

@Jarrod Cook, I thought of Birmingham at one point in time.

I was recently blessed with being able to form a joint venture with a hedge fund, for SFR's that are pocket listings and not available to the public, in Cook County.

I believe it is a good idea to stay away from Cook county.

A lot of it would depend on exiting, isle placement, types of refrigeration, full or limited meat department, bakery, etc.Even the large grocers like Albertsons can't estimate a cost per square for a store buildout unless they've designed and constructed the buildings to their specs.Unless you're dealing with an experienced contractor who has built out multiple grocers, I doubt you'll be able to estimate a buildout cost.This type of capital improvement is just to large a component of leading costs so my advise would be to spend the money and have an architect layout the store, they don't need to draw up plans just yet, and then find a qualified contractor, or two, or three, to bid out the job.

Please contact me at your earliest convenience.Looking forward to hearing from you,Rebecca Sole

If a wholesaler had come to me at the start, I would have made money.  

A couple of banks(bank says can't lend on legal 3 flats) and a credit union(limited to certain county residents, mostly outside of Cook) have said no, so I'm here asking for help! 

I went to close in March and lender left me"at the altar"