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Your lease is expiring, and can't be renewed.
The lease could be renewed, but the price is too high.
You've outgrown your space.
The space has become inefficient for your needs.
Whatever the reason, moving is on your mind.
Hopefully, you have a year or two before you need to pack. That's how long it can take to plan the move, research the market, negotiate a deal, and build the new space. Each step of the process needs to be carefully planned at the very beginning, with a timetable and a clearly defined outline of responsibilities. Otherwise, you will find yourself running out of time as your lease expiration nears, and at the mercy of the landlord in negotiations for new space.
A well-constructed relocation timetable typically includes five discrete phases, some of which may overlap in implementation:
1. Groundwork
At the very outset of the project, your team must be assembled. This includes your broker, your architect and your attorney. Your broker will help with strategic planning, and will be the linchpin in the program. Your architect will help determine your space requirements. Your attorney will become familiar with your concerns, and will be ready to review a draft lease when one is prepared.
2. Alternate Site Study
With approximate space requirements, locations preferences, and a target price range established, your broker will scour the marketplace to prepare a list of properties likely to meet your needs. After a joint consultation, you will go together to inspect those units worth seeing in person. The list of candidates will be narrowed.
3. Financial Analysis
Your broker will subject each prospective deal to rigorous financial analysis. Base rent is only one of a dozen components of occupancy cost, each of which is structured differently in different properties. This analysis will provide you with both the average and effective annual cost for each unit under consideration. Based on cost, the list will be narrowed further, to just a few.
4. Lease Negotiation
Your broker will aggressively negotiate with each of the landlords
simultaneously. Through a series of offers and counter-offers, the most
favorable terms possible for each property will emerge. The financial
analysis will be continually updated. Ultimately, you will make a decision, and a draft lease will be prepared. Your attorney will review the draft, and negotiate its legal terms. Eventually, a lease will be signed.
5. Getting Ready to Move
Your architect will have a deadline to submit detailed working drawings for the construction of the space. While the space is being built, telephones, stationery and furniture are ordered, and arrangements are made for the physical move.
This is only a brief schematic of the relocation process. From the beginning, each member of the team needs to know what is expected, and when. Good advance planning, implemented by a professional team, is an absolute prerequisite to a smooth move.
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