When we had to move last year we were lucky enough to find a generous Commercial Real Estate agent that donated his time and energy to lead the charge on finding us a new space.  This was extremely helpful.  He located spaces that were appropriate for our needs and helped negotiate reasonable rent.
Some ideas that popped up as an option was an old elementary school building that was being used by several other organizations, and the basement of a church.  We wouldn't have looked there if not for someone finding the spaces for us.  Finding a landlord that is willing to reduce rent, donate space is a cool thing too.  Our landlord I is donating space on the other side of our building for three non-profits to share for one year.  And when negotiating our lease, our 'agent' got our rent reduced a little more by agreeing to give our landlord 30 bikes per year she could give to low income people in the neighborhood of her Hmong indoor market and grocery store.  It's kind of creative lease that helps get more people on bikes.
I guess what I learned from this experience was that there are a lot of different options, because there is so much empty, abandoned space out there, but having a good search and negotiation team will help the most.  And it's ok to negotiate creatively.  And we got a five year lease, so we would not have to move again soon.  That move almost killed us!  Moving a bike shop with years of history and piles of stuff is not my idea of fun. Best of luck on your search!
John
Sibley Bike Depot
St. Paul, MN

----- Original Message -----
From: veganboyjosh@gmail.com
To: "The Think Tank" <thethinktank@bikecollectives.org>
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 9:22:57 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] City Support

Hi Doug,

Sorry to hear about the shutdown.

Community Cycles in Boulder scored some storage space from two out of the ordinary sources. First, the City of Boulder owns a parking garage downtown. It's the same building that the bus station is in. There is an underused room for storage that will hold several hundred bikes. There's very poor lighting, no external windows, and no heating. It's pretty much a concrete room. Also, it's directly underneath the parking garage. When it's winter, and it snows, the chemicals from the road salt leak through seams in the concrete and corrode metal. Not all that friendly to bikes. We've had the space for several years now, and have some experience with where not to put bikes in that room.

We were also approached by Boulder County with some of their space. The building that houses their big snow plow vehicles and several other large emergency response vehicles was scheduled to be unused for 2 years. In about 2 years, the building will either be torn down or sold. As it would sit unused and empty for 2 years, they called us and offered us the space for the interim. We can't do a lot of our programming out of the space, but we can store and wrench on bikes there. It's an invaluable resource, as it can hold 400 bikes easy, 5 to 6 hundred if we really need it to.

I don't have any specific advice for you, Doug, as both of these spaces sort of fell on us. But I would suggest asking around to everyone you know to see if anyone knows anything, and encouraging them to ask around, too. Just get the word out that you're looking for a space, and make it a desperate plea...In this economy, there are plenty of empty spaces...as bad as that sounds...

Good luck.



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