Description

Rolf: Marc, Matthew and I checked out the space this morning!
The correct address seems to be 805 Carleton St.
It is right next to a former foundry, which is an immense-sized building.

In my opinion, the space had some good points (cheap, lots of sq ft, location seems safe, correct zoning).
but, it is in a rather unfinished and delapidated state (no water hookup, no outlets, unfinished 2nd floor).
However, the landlord says he plans to upgrade this.

Matt: This is a large space at a very good price. I initially overestimated the size due to an inability to do math in my head- it is likely around 1200 sq ft. This space has all the markings of being a former foundry: wooden beams with soot or superficial fire damage, rail in concrete floor, etc. The bones seem good.

That said, for a place that will house people doing work, while I absolutely think that this could be a very cool place and one that I would love to work in personally, there is no way that this is up to code for people to use as anything other than storage. Even with significant sweat (and blood and tears) equity, there's a fatal flaw- in an earthquake or other emergency, there really is only one route of egress, and that's from the front of the building. There's a significant upstairs space which could be secured and turned into a nice size lab (roughly 12x16, or 200 sq ft) and the downstairs area could be partitioned into 3-4 areas of similar size, including storage/shelving, common area, etc. If you're in the upstairs lab in the event of an emergency, you could wind up stuck or trapped inside if the front gate were down. On the other hand, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, it might not be so bad.

The non-roll-up entrance is through the oversized bathroom on the side of the space and shared in common- which has a certain charm but I'm not sure I'm crazy about a space that doesn't have a separate bathroom, and not crazy about having to walk through a bathroom to open the space up. Not crazy about having to leave the roll up door open to get air and natural light.

I fully expect that within our price range, we are going to have to put the amount of sweat equity this place needs no matter where we go, or to settle on a space way too small for 12-15 people to be in simultaneously and also have 1-2 -80 freezers, -20 freezer, fridge, sink, lab tables, equipment, etc. I can fill 200 sq ft just with the supplies I have to hand, ignoring people, tables, couches.

The fact that there is no power or water in the space (currently 40A of service wired to one or two jury-rigged outlets- we will likely need 120-150A service, 2-3 phase 220v) can be worked out with the landlord, but exposes the need to gather more detailed electrical and plumbing requirements. Quite frankly, for half a mil you can get something like this spotless industrial condo ( http://annebruff.com/1940-Union-St-Unit-18-a274433.html ) but that requires negotiating a mortgage that would almost certainly be twice as much per month.

I really, really like the space, despite all of the aforementioned. The landlord is very nice, the likelihood that it would become a deathtrap is vanishingly low (but non zero), and the space would be readily reconfigurable. The security of the location is very good- in an hour or so there on sunday, Bayer patrols scouted the block three separate times. It's zoned right. It's bikeable from BART. The size would allow significant social space in addition to the lab. It's quiet, I think- it's inconspicuous. It screams out like it wants to house a makerspace.