Freehold Property / Shop

[shopproblem]

I own a commercial freehold in Essex which has permission for conversion into 9 flats and a 1200 sq ft commercial unit directly fronting a secondry commercial (officially zoned as primary) street in a decent size town centre - about 2 - 3 minutes from the main highstreet (population 200,000) which is densely populated. The property has a license and permission for use as a members club & function suite, it also has permission to convert into retail. It was previously a snooker club.

The building is on the end of the worst central road in the town, leading to some high rise council blocks. There isnt much money in the area. In the road there are a handful of hairdressers, 2 bars, a tatoosits, a large number of small restaurants, kebab shops and takeaways, cheque cashing services, pawn brokers, newsagents, housing associations offices, NHS drug related clinics etc and about 30% empty premises.

I would like to retain control of the building and not sub lease the unit if I can help it in order to maintain the look of the building etc( I am also concerned it wont let easily) Can anyone give me any suggestions about what type of business could work well here?

A suggestion that keeps coming up is a sports bar however I am concerned there wouldnt be enough room and that it would be a constant head ache.

One thing to mention which is important is that I work very long hours in my other business which has historically been very profitable and as such anything I do here will have to be run by management and not be a daily distraction.

Any ideas anyone??

[complete]

Its not Chadwell Heath is it?

[vvaannmmaann]

You could fill it with second hand furniture.Severalplaces in Eastbourne do this.Take away your old sofa for you,then sell it on.If the area is as you describe it may work.Do ensure that the furniture is fire proofed though.
A bar/pub is bl@@dy hard work,and a lot of grief.Plus the latest figures show pub closures to be very high.Also the potential ban on Happy Hours will kill you before you start.

[deniser]

You don't say what your long term intentions are for the building - whether to keep for rental purposes or sell and get out.

I don't think you can go into any business and assume it will run itself without impacting on you. With this attitude it is bound to fail. Running a successful business takes a lot of hard work even if you are not working in the premises day to day.

This coupled with the fact that many businesses are struggling generally because of the economic climate might mean that you are better off selling the unit along with the flats on a long lease. You can then transfer the freehold to a resident's association and leave them all to it.

You don't say what you intend to do with the flats - whether to sell or let them. Once they're sold it doesn't really matter what the image is of the unit below although you will need to protect the residents from nuisance in the lease you grant.

I have lots of experience of problems caused by residential property above bars and restaurants to this is not the ideal use unless you control the use very carefully with extra soundproofing over and above the minimum required by building regs, make sure that all doors and windows remain closed, that no-one is allowed to stand outside smoking, that no loud music is played etc. You've also got the problem of residents being disturbed by deliveries and being woken up by the bottle collection company early in the morning.

Otherwise (and even with precautions) you will have a never ending string of residents' complaints to deal with.

[shopproblem]

The long term intention is to keep the entire freehold and let the flats individually as part of my retirement fund. Its a good size lump of property not far from the centre of town. There is some major plans for the area and some big new private developments as such I expect the road to improve in the long term i.e. 5 - 10 years. So ideally I want to maintain control of the entire building as oppossed to granting a FRI lease to a tennant. I would only ever sell if the rental yield substantially reduced due to the value of the property increasing substantially or if the property was worth more as a development site.

[deniser]

You will probably still be better off trying to let the commercial unit than trying to run your own business from it. You can still retain control under an FRI lease (which only actually means the tenant contributes towards the cost of the repairs you undertake plus insurance, nothing more) by restricting the user and inserting the necessary covenants to protect the residential tenants of the upper floors.

I would avoid the bar/restaurant type of use though because that's just difficult straight off in a mixed use building and try perhaps to get offices or medical users (although these won't come under A3 or A1 uses) - doctors, dentists, physios, chiropractors, hypnotherapists, vets, osteopaths, that kind of thing.

Or just straightforward retail of some non offensive kind. You can put the usual restrictions on the types of retail that would affect your letting or value of the upper parts - typical restrictions are butchers, pet shops, undertakers, sex shops, off licences etc.