Do you need help finding a warehouse to rent? Finding a warehouse to rent is tricky because renting a warehouse is nothing like renting a residential or retail space. The factors that you need to consider while finding a warehouse to rent for your business are far more unique than when you are just looking for a house to live in.
To make your life easier while you are finding a warehouse to rent, we’ve put together a list of important factors to consider:
Five Things to Consider While Finding a Warehouse to Rent
- Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC)
Unlike residential rentals, commercial warehouses rarely come with heating, ventilation and air conditioning. Often, they are not even equipped for it, and extensive modifications must be made to the building to make it practical. If your commercial warehousing needs require heat and air, you should plan to spend a pretty penny retrofitting the commercial distribution warehouse space with it.
However, if the warehouse you are interested in renting already has an HVAC unit, it is most likely because the previous tenant installed it. This could be a good or bad thing. It’s good if your business needs require an HVAC unit. It’s bad that you have no way of knowing if it was maintained properly and efficient. If you get into a warehouse with a poorly installed HVAC system, it could cost you an arm and a leg maintain, and to utilize.
If your warehouse is equipped with an HVAC unit from a previous tenant (or even if it is supplied by the owner), you want to make sure that you are not responsible for the costs of major repairs to it (as that could set you back thousands of dollars). You should also make sure that the condition of the HVAC unit is certified by an HVAC specialist, that it is in good working condition. - Operating Costs
It is fairly standard practice for the tenant of a warehouse to cover expenses including the property taxes, insurance, and basic maintenance to the building. Some maintenance and upkeep false into somewhat of a “grey area” however. For instance, if there is a major repair required to the roof of the warehouse, is that your responsibility, or the responsibility of the landlord? Before entering into a lease on a warehouse, make sure that you understand what your responsibility is and what responsibilities the landlord has for the space. If you understand that the condition of the poorly maintained blah blah blah on the warehouse is going to be money out of your pocket, it leaves you with a new perspective when deciding if you want to rent it or not. - Calculation of Square Footage
The way that landlords calculate the square footage of their buildings is not as “standard practice” as the way residential spaces are measured. Some landlords calculate the external area of the building, not the usable space inside the building. Some landlords even include the space underneath the drip lines. The square footage of a building might be a very attractive reason to want to rent it out, but this is only useful if the square footage advertised is space that you can actually make use of. - Parking Lot Space
Pay careful attention to the parking lot space that is available outside of the warehouse. If you have limited parking lot space, it could create more of an issue than just not being able to find a place to leave your car in the morning (although that’s an issue to consider). If your parking lot is limited or unavailable, you might have difficulties getting delivery trucks in and out, which would be a substantial bottleneck to operations.
The maintenance of the parking lot is also a factor you should understand who is responsible for. Some landlords expect the tenants to upkeep maintenance on it. - Zoning Regulations
What a buzzkill if you find the perfect space, for the perfect price tag that fits right in your budget, only to discover that the zoning regulations for that area bar you from utilizing the space for the purposes you had intended it for. Before you rent out a warehouse, make sure you understand what you are and are not allowed to do in it.
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