Major Milestone: I signed a lease. Here’s what happened next.
I think an objective observer from the outside might think I’m moving pretty fast. I opened for business working out of the house in March 2016, barely over a year later, I signed the lease to my first location. In that same time period, net sales grew from $700 in March 2016 to $5300 in March 2017. April will be the 4th month in a row of growth in daily sales.
Then why do I feel like I’m moving so slowly?
It has now been 10 days since I signed the lease and got the key and nothing has been done there. The water is not running, the power is not on, and I’m caught up in a bureaucratic nightmare with the City of Dallas.
Why I chose this location —
Knowing exactly where my customers are in Dallas, I knew where the prime spots would be. This place is just east of Uptown and just north of Deep Ellum and less than 2 miles from downtown. Not only that, it is on one of the busiest streets heading into downtown from the east, Ross Ave.
Put on top of that the fact that the rent is half of everything else I’ve seen with a location like this, I was eager to get it.
Having a landlord approve me was not going to be an easy task either. Most prospective landlords want to look at my financials. One look by most landlords and I would be instantly rejected. This operation is 100% bootstrapped by me and my brother. It just so happened that this landlord is from the same country as us (Iran), and so they trusted us more and approved our application right away, despite the weak financials.
I had been looking for a commercial space off and on since launching the company. This place was like hitting the jackpot. Turns out it was too good to be true.
That’s not to say that I am not satisfied with this place. I love it. The odds of getting another storefront with this type of traffic is nil. Plus going back to searching for real estate could set me back as long as another year. So as you read this story, keep in mind that I have to make this work.
Turning the power on —
Upon signing the lease, I called a power company and I scheduled the power to be turned on Monday April 17th. They called me that day to tell me the City of Dallas was putting a hold on my power until I obtained a Certificate of Occupancy. Furious, I went to city hall downtown and stood in line only to find out I was at the wrong place.
When I got to the right place, an older man had began walking me through the steps of compliance. First he looked up the code to see if it allowed a laundry pick up station in that building. Luckily, it did. Next he looked up if there was enough parking at the building for this type of store and there definitely is not.
The city code requires certain types of businesses to have a certain number of designated parking spots. For example, a 1,200 sq. ft. office requires 2 parking spots whereas a 1,200 sq. ft. laundry pick up station requires 6 parking spots.
The whole building only has 6 legitimate parking spots.
The information that I just summarized for you about parking took me 3 trips to that city office to fully understand. They wouldn’t even talk to me about parking until I brought in the sketches they were demanding. They asked me for professional drafts of the site plan and the floor plan drawn to scale on 11"x 17" paper. As luck would have it, my aunt is an architect and she drew it up for me in one night.
When I took it to the city on my 3rd visit this week, they asked for more corrections (smh).
Once I jump this hoop the next hoop is the parking situation.
Next: Parking —
The city says I have to make some sort of agreement with another business nearby that allows me to use their parking lot. There is a gas station next door that has extra parking spots and it is the only viable option. I’m going to do my best to make a deal with them.
Then: Building Code —
They told me that once the scale drawings were approved and the parking agreement was made (taking 3–4 weeks), next they would send out an inspector to make sure the unit meets code compliance.
There is no way that unit will meet compliance. I can imagine a worst case scenario where there’s asbestos and getting the place to meet code will cost thousands of dollars which I doubt the landlord could afford. That’s the worst case scenario though.
The likely scenario is that the code enforcer gives me a list of shit that needs to be fixed and I’ll have to haggle with the landlord to get it fixed.
Then: Power and Renovations —
After several weeks of jumping through hoops (all the while paying rent on an empty place) I should have power. At that point I can start renovating, remodeling, and adding the washer / dryer hook ups.
Once that work is done I can open for business, which quite possibly might be 2 or more months down the road.
Maybe there’s a faster way?
I’ve been in touch with the landlord and we’ve explored if there is a better way to get power to the building without having to wait for the city.
The guy from the city office told me no one from that building had filed any paperwork with their office since 1996. They had no clue what businesses were even operating there.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to do the same thing. I’m still going to follow the proper procedure. I can’t have the city shut me down a year or two from now because of code compliance.
But if I can have my power turned on, I can follow the procedure and all the while renovate the place, cutting the time it takes to open the store in half.
That’s my current plan.
All the while…
While I’m dealing with all this, my business is the busiest it has ever been. Every month my time is stretched thinner and thinner.
I’m not complaining. Every problem I’ve listed here is solvable. I’m full steam ahead right now despite the setbacks.
This story is part of a series documenting the journey of a Dallas startup called Feather Laundry. For your reference here is the Table of Contents for the series.
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