Choosing retail space for lease is truly one of the most important decisions you will make as a retail business owner. This article is designed to be a general outline, or guide, for those looking for retail space for rent for the first time. Hopefully we will provide you with enough information so you can begin your search informed and better prepared to make the right decision/choice.
We are RDS Real Estate, serving the Greater Fort Worth Metro area with outstanding and affordable industrial space and commercial property for rent. When it comes to properties for businesses in the Fort Worth area, nobody does it better than RDS Real Estate. Call us at 817-439-3224.
The importance of retail space for lease location.
When it comes to real estate, location is king. There is no escaping that truth. For a retail business which depends upon customers, drive-by location and walk-by location will make or break a company.
Let’s use a very elementary example to drive this point home. If the vast majority of traffic through a town travels along one main road, and you have a retail shop six blocks east of that road, your retail shop will suffer for it, and the further from that main traffic road you are located, your sales will drop accordingly.
Will that fact be enough to kill your business? Not necessarily, but it is enough of a factor to give thought about. If you are opening a Wal Mart, and we are still talking about the previous example, your store will still do well, even though it is not on that main access road. But you will lose business to similar stores which are on that road, simply because shoppers do not like inconvenience, and driving six blocks out of the way is an inconvenience.
And, to a small clothing shop, or a small convenience store, those six blocks might kill the business all together.
Be aware of the present and plan for the future.
One word of caution: know the demographics of your city and know where future growth will be happening. Our own Fort Worth holds a valuable lesson in this regard.
Fort Worth Metro area is over-saturated, and considerable growth is not happening, and will continue to happen, north and south of the downtown area. If you are a retail store owner, you will want to be aware of that growth trend and perhaps situate your store on the path of that future growth.
The only time when location may not be crucial.
The only possible exception to this rule that we can think of is if you sell a product which would be considered a necessity, and you have no other competition in the area. In that case, where you are located is not going to affect sales since, as mentioned earlier, you are selling a necessity. But that scenario is very rare, especially in larger cities.
We are reminded of a place called San Gregorio, California, a sleepy area along the coast, random farmland bordered by forest, no real town to speak of, and seemingly randomly placed, in the middle of that rural vastness, is a huge general store offering everything under the sun, including a deli, coffee shop, live music and a dance floor. That single building was the hub of the surrounding area, and the parking lot was constantly overflowing. People drove for miles, daily, to that general store. Was location important in that case? Probably not, but it is a very rare case indeed.
A final word about RDS Real Estate.
RDS Real Estate is locally owned and operated, and we believe that makes all the difference in the world. We know Fort Worth and we know Tarrant County, as only locals can know them. Call us today, tell us what you need i.e. warehouse for rent, shop for rent, retail space for lease, tell us your budget, and then turn us loose to do what we do better than anyone else.