So my first official blog post has so much drama already, I don’t plan on ever disappointing the fab readers of NAILS Magazine. So in the past couple of weeks I’ve been within just days of signing my lease with Overton Square and I, unfortunately, had to decline the space. Sadly, for many different reasons, I couldn’t confidently agree to be bound to that realty company for five-plus years.

The first issue that came up was the spike in rent. The tricky part about this type of lease on this type of property is that’s it’s a triple net lease which means I’m responsible for property taxes and maintenance for my space’s percentage of the property, which would be fine, only this is an old property being renovated and they’re adding a parking garage. Now all of this sounds absolutely fantabulous, except for the fact that they doubled the rent after they learned how much work the property required, which in turn, put me over budget. That wouldn’t be so bad if the property wasn’t being renovated which will make the property tax go way up, which in turn will make my rent go up. Now that’s just not gonna work, AT ALL!

The way this particular realtor operates is not really conducive to any small business. They are the most expensive realtor in the city and that combined with the triple net leases spell death to any small business that doesn’t have money just lying around to give them for tax or maintenance increases. I learned about them through networking with different small business owners in the city that rent from them.

So... (long pause, deep breath) now my broker and I took a brief intermission and today we took a look at another property. This one is on Union, not far from Overton Square. It has three available bays from 1,400 to almost 1,700 square feet. They have the strangest layouts I have ever seen, but all of them have a cool feature — an upstairs loft area. It’s not big, but it would be cool for an office or studio to make my jewelry or package my products. So my broker and I will touch base Monday to go over what I need from them so we can start negotiating everything.

The good news is that I got a partial investor for my products, so I will get to start doing the inventory for the new place now, so I won’t have that to deal with that while we move. So here we go again with the search.

Stay tuned...

— Lauren, Graffiti Nail Bar, Memphis, Tenn.