I know this blog of my journey in opening my studio is late, but I have been very busy with it - and with good cause. Here is what I have been up to in the past year with this project...piece by piece...
Late last year, my mentor, a fellow dancer and I talked about our dream to own a studio. We all agreed it was the route we should seriously pursue. The studio where we were renting from was in an unknown state and we were not sure if we would be there in a few months or so... Our own group of dancers, students, and performers were growing so fast and that we were running out of room to hold classes was proof enough of our expansion needs. We NEED a new studio!
In January, we seriously put this thought on the road and take off with it. It was going to happen. The place where we were renting was still in uncertainty and we had to do what we had to do to protect our business.
First things first, file for official business, get a bank acccount (actually several), make a business pan, do ALOT of research, outline what we need to do for our classes and....we need a location.
It only looked easy as we saw many gorgeous buildings and potential locations. Then it hit us...the price - seems that these gorgeous buildings also had a steep price...even in this economy. Prices ranged from $1.59/sf to $3.95/sf - we were looking for something much lower per square foot. Looking for a lower priced place was another challenge - industrial areas offer plenty of room, low overhead, and fairly easy access. This too, also had it's limitation; the city's zoning where we were located prohibited a dance studio to use a comercial zoned area. We needed to look for a mixed use building that would comply with the city use zoning. Just as we found something that was mixed use, low overhead, and easy access, issues with each of our locaion searches had their own set of problems such as lack of parking, extra utilites charges, and lease issues that would leave us at the mercy of the landlord. Because most of the buildings in our area are older, we encountered our share of rickety buildings, sloping floors, lack of handicapped access, the strong smell of mold & unmentionables, odd floor plans, and really weird retrofitting. Dozens and dozens of locations and leasing agents later, we needed to look beyond our city since they are not mixed use friendly. This meant our search and research will need to start all over again.
It's no wonder why there is a high rate of small business failure in our city.
7 months ago
