Armando Lanuti, President of Creative Works, talks about the items you should bring with you when doing commercial property site visits for your new business.
Welcome to another 360 Insights video; where we share actionable items for those looking to get into in the entertainment industry or those already there. Today I want to talk about visiting a site—trying to find that location for your next business adventure—and what you need with you when you’re going on these trips.
First and foremost, don’t forget to bring a pen and paper. It’s really easy to take down notes and jot down anything you might need to remember about that space; inside, outside, the things you find questions you might have to take back to the landlord or architect. You can have that information that so you aren’t trying to recall it days or weeks later.
The other thing you should make sure you have with you is your phone. Almost all of you will have a smart phone these days with great cameras on them. Make sure that you’re taking pictures! You might be going to several sites in the same day with a real estate broker, so a real quick tip: bookmark your visit. Take picture of the outside of the facility before you go in, then take all of the photos and videos that you need while you’re in there, then as you leave, take another picture of the outside to basically cap the end of your visit. This way, you know where pictures belonged to each location. Another thing to keep in mind is don’t just do pictures, but take several videos throughout the space where you are panning the space; going up and down. Later on you might realize you didn’t get a picture of something you wanted but captured it on video, instead.
Another quick and handy tool to ensure you have is a laser measurer. They range around $40-50, maybe a little more depending on how long of a range and how big of a facility you are. This will give you great accuracy as to just determining how big a space is. They might’ve given you a plan that has your space, but didn’t account for dimensions of a storage closet or some other piece in there. You’ll want to be able to get those dimensions because it’ll affect your plan. The other thing to keep in mind that this helps with is that they might list something like a ceiling height at 18-feet or 20-feet, and that might be true to the deck, but things that might not account for are your HVAC, sprinklers or lights. It’s those kind of things that are going to be hanging down that from a code standpoint that we have to take into account when trying to build a second level structure in that laser tag arena. Or, if you’re doing inflatables or trampolines, all of those heights are going to matter. Having this to have that definitive ceiling height from the lowest hanging object above the finished floor is going to be really helpful.
We hope this helps. Stay tuned for more tips in the future. Now, get after it!