The Joy of Store Location Hunting

I say joy tongue-in-cheek; it's really sorta bringing me down. When I initially decided to open a used bookstore I thought it would be a fairly simple process to rent a storefront. It's not, it's a lot of work and effort just finding an available location and renting or leasing it. I have looked at over 30 properties in the last 15 months and only 6 of them were even listed in the paper. Interestingly enough 7 I found by looking through listings online, which means online advertising outranked traditional newspaper ads, hmmmmmm.

The last location I looked at I thought would really be the one. It was in an old building that was well-maintained and bordered by other interesting stores. It would have been a co-lease with a coffee shop as there were open spaces between the two storefronts. Long story short, the owner sold us out for rich developers. I can't say I blame him, it was a lot of money for property he inherited and had gotten into debt to maintain and pay taxes on. The developers bought up the whole block and plan to put a little strip mall. bleh.

The search is back on. Wish me luck! I am determined to make this happen.