[x-post r/smallbusiness] Found the perfect space for my brick &amp; mortar... Only problem... Someone else is renting it!
Hi r/CommercialRealEstate! I had a question from a tenant perspective, and I was wondering if I might get better expertise from this crowd. :-)

**TL;DR - Perfect retail space in a neighborhood with few spaces. Current tenant is using it as a glorified storage closet with windows, and seemingly has no future intention of doing otherwise. What can I do?**

Long version:

I live in a pretty small town and, for a while, I've been hoping to open a brick &amp; mortar gift shop on my local shopping street down the block from my house. This retail "district" is only about four blocks long total, and has some typical local business types (kids' karate center, barbers, a few women's clothing boutiques, locally-owned cafes and restaurants, small fast food places, liquor stores, corner stores).

There's a tiny space (probably 12'x6' max) squeezed between an ice cream shop and a check-into-cash place. It's been closed for at least a year or two, at least for as long as I've been living here. I peered inside the window last week and there's junk ("inventory"?) piled up high inside, like someone's throwaway storage closet.


So I went home and Googled some more. The woman who seemingly last rented it was a serial entrepreneur of sorts. A costume/ethnic jewelry store, a "garden" store, and a world tourism business (I don't know what this last one means) -- all linked to her name and all linked to this address at different times throughout the last 3-4 years years. Again, I haven't seen the doors on this place open, ever, for at least a year. And it's clear from the mess inside that it hasn't been meant for human customers to enter for quite some time.


So, foolishly, I emailed her and asked her if she could put me in touch with the space's landlord. I received a rather curt response from her, stating that she still rented the space, and that she has an online tourism business "so I don't really have to open it up."


Is there anything I can do here? I feel like we have so few small business opportunities locally, and her glorified storage closet is such a wasted chance. If you were in her position, do you think I could do anything to sway you? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
[{"id": "cjpz5s1", "text": "Try contacting the landlord through a broker. If she signed the lease in the trough of the market, she definitely won't be budging unless you figure out more about her lease and what the landlord wants. She may be on the last year of her lease and you'll want to get in front of that roll. Otherwise, maybe you can offer the landlord enough that he will buyout the existing tenant if possible. An active business is much better than a dark business because it helps drive traffic to that street, raising property values overall.", "replies": [{"id": "cjq8110", "text": "Thank you, that's really helpful. Is there any way (public record?) for me to find out who the landlord is without having to ask her? She seemed a little hostile by email, and I don't think she'll be sharing of her own volition...\n\nAnother concern I have is that if the landlord has been receiving properly-paid, consistent rent from this tenant for years, despite her not opening doors, he might consider her a more reliable source of his passive income. A new tenant might be considered a riskier choice, perhaps?", "replies": [{"id": "cjqhews", "text": "Property Owner Search:\nGo to your local county's tax assessor's office. Click on \"Search Tax Records\" and search by location address - this is where it gets tricky - sometimes the address is recorded a bit different than the mailing address:\n\n123 W Clark Kent St ===&gt; mailing address\n123 Clark Kent St ===&gt; County records for search purposes\n\nThis should give you the property name.\n\nBusiness search\"\n\nFinally, for the appropriate address of her business, go to your state's secretary of state website and search corporations by owner name. Type her name in there, it should provide her tourism corporation if she has one and should provide the physical address of her business which should be that location.\n\nDepending on how good you are at approaching people (compared to someone better than you), make a judgment call on whether to use a broker or not. And for crying out loud please do not fall for confirmatory bias when asking your opinion of yourself if you are good at approaching people or not.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "cjq8nfi", "text": "If it's worth it to your business, you could offer to buy her out of her lease. I wouldn't do this until you had agreement from the landlord and you and he approach her together about it. It could be that the landlord wants her gone as much as you want to be there. ", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]