A lease is the most expensive document most small businesses sign, and it is usually signed before anybody has checked whether the space can legally become the business the tenant has in mind. By the time that question gets asked, the rent has started.
Here is what we look at, in the order we look at it.
1. What is it allowed to be?
Zoning decides what uses are permitted on the property, and the building code decides what the building can accommodate. These are two separate checks and both can stop a project. A unit zoned for retail is not automatically available for a clinic, a daycare or a restaurant.
2. Occupant load and exiting
The number of people a space is rated for drives almost everything else: how many exits it needs, how wide they must be, how many washroom fixtures are required. If your business model needs sixty seats and the exiting supports forty, that is not a design problem you can style your way around.
3. Washrooms
Fixture counts follow occupant load and use. Adding washrooms means plumbing, which means drainage, which means either an existing line in the right place or a considerably larger budget. Where the drains are is worth knowing before you sign.
4. Ceiling height and what is above it
Look up. The clear height after mechanical, sprinklers and lighting is what you actually get. For a gym, a climbing space, a restaurant with a hood, or anything with equipment, this can be decisive.
5. The services that are already there
Electrical capacity, gas, water, ventilation, and whether the base building can carry what you intend to add. Upgrading a service is one of the few costs that can genuinely double a fit-out budget.
6. Accessibility
Entry, path of travel, washroom access. Older buildings frequently have an entrance that will need work, and that work is rarely small.
7. What the landlord is actually giving you
“Base building” means different things to different landlords. Establish in writing what exists on the day you take possession, what the allowance covers, when it is paid, and against what evidence. An allowance paid on completion is a cash-flow question as much as a budget one.
8. The dates
When does rent start, and is there a fixturing period? A free-rent period that expires during permit review is not much use. If your permit timeline is longer than your fixturing period, negotiate the dates while you still have leverage — which is before you sign.
Do this before, not after
Every item above is answerable in a walkthrough and a couple of hours of checking. We do this as a free unit feasibility check, because the alternative — finding out in week six — is expensive for everybody and we would rather you signed the right unit.