Southmore Warehouse Search

"people have been asking me about the situation so i thought id send an update. spread the word

"so we had a location picked out on polk street and have been working on negotiating a lease, but it is not going well. we initially had our hearts set on a location near classic southmore, but it is looking like this may not be possible. the reasons are as follows:

"- the land value of the warehouse district is going up due to recently completed and currently planned developments, such as the new soccer stadium, which will take up 5 downtown blocks. based on my conversations with landlords and real estate people it looks like property owners are beginning to be reluctant about leasing to people like us (i.e. people with no money). theyre all looking for long-term investments

"-the person who owns the polk location is a total flake and will not respond to phone calls or emails. it requires weeks of constantly bugging the man just to accomplish what would take any normal person 5 or 10 minutes. several other people have had this experience; popular explanations include drug and alcohol addiction. i speculate that he simply doesnt need the money as he already owns half of downtown

"- our budget is very, very limited. several places were ruled out because rent was too high

"- the fire marshall is cracking down on code compliance in this area. supper happy fun land (only 6 blocks away from the spot we wanted) was told two weeks ago that they couldnt have shows until the building was brought up to code and was fined a ridiculous amount. they are spending the money to fix everything, but this would be way out of our price range. if this happened at polk street that would be the end of it.

"it sucks but i think the best course of action is to give up on the warehouse district and find somewhere slightly outside of downtown, perhaps 5th ward or telephone/lawndale areas where we can find something that will last longer. keep an eye out - the more people working on this the better. this will happen"