[Noisebridge-discuss] I need help looking at some buildings on 4/25-4/27

Martin Bogomolni martinbogo at gmail.com
Mon Apr 6 18:19:41 UTC 2009


I'm looking to return to the Bay Area after this contract in Austin is
finished.  Since the real estate market is currently at the lowest
it's been in a while, it's an attractive time for me to try putting
together an idea I've had for a while:  A hacker/geek community house.

The concept behind the house is:

There will be 8-10 private apartments, 1-2 bedroom, with full
kitchen/bath and optionally fully furnished.
There will always be one or two apartments available for weekly rental
vs. leasing for guests and projects.
Apartments will have a mix of rent/lease options (weekly or 3-6-12 month lease)
Services included in the rent
     unmetered water usage
     VoIP telephone ( local + US nationwide )
     Broadband Video services (potentially, dependent on AT&T u-verse
availability)
     10mbit down / 1mbit up shared access to the house network in the
apartment and public space
     Virtual private server in the house colo (Xen, VMWare, ??? free OS)
     separate (not central) aircon and heating
     24/7 access to the workshop and an office in the common space
     Cleaning service for the common spaces
     I'm working with Jim Newton to see if I can include a TechShop
membership (Menlo Park)
Services that are metered or optional
     Cleaning service for the apartment
     VoIP telephone long distance charges
     Traditional Cable TV services, Cable/Satellite channels like HBO etc
     Colo traffic >2 gigabyte/month,
A large, open workshop w/ tools and machines (after a basic safety
course has been passed for a given machine)
A house budget to purchase resources for projects that people have in
common (biological, computer, mechanical, art, etc)
Common lounge, and ability to schedule and host events in the common
spaces w/ cleaning service

The basis of having a community house would be to foster a stable
environment for the free exchange of ideas, and provide a safe and
supportive environment for people who share a hacker ethos but also
provide living space and privacy.   The apartments would be leased
rather than TIC or Condo to minimize financial risk and provide people
the flexibility to come and go.

For the last four or five weeks I have had a real estate broker for
commercial & residence properties sending me listings for all kinds of
locations in San Francisco that fit the Live/Work zoning requirements.
  They run the gamut from "good lord this is sketchy" to "holy crap,
how cool, if only I had $7M lying around."    Even after pulling out
the ones that are obviously not appropriate, there are still almost 20
listings left.

It's my plan at the moment to come back to San Francisco on the first
weekend in May ( May 1-4 ) to take care of a number of things,
including looking at of some these properties with the broker's
company.   There's no way I can look at all the properties on my own,
so I'm looking for some help.   If you're interested in lending a
hand, I'm going to try to schedule a couple of the broker's people to
do tours of 3-5 properties and then host a dinner at the end of the
day to get the impressions and opinions of the people who volunteered
to help me make an informed decision of which properties to pay more
attention to.

The criteria that I'm looking to fit are:

o) Property cost - $1M->$2.5M at the most.   The higher the cost, the
less money available for equipment/renovation
o) Can be subdivided - The intention is to have enough space,
plumbing, and power to make 8-10 one to two bedroom units
o) Has room for at least two common spaces big enough to turn into a
workshop, and a lounge / collaborative space
o) PARKING - Non optional on this one.  Must have enough room to make
8 parking spaces, street parking sucks
o) Easy access to public transportation and alternative transport
o) Not Too Sketchy(tm) - People should feel safe living and walking
around the area

Bonus stuff

o) Outdoor area to work in (parking lot, rear lot, fenced in area,
park, garden, etc
o) Extremely high speed Internet access available via fiber, radio,
without a lot of rework
o) Access to more than one leg of a power grid
o) Heavy machinery like a crane, winch, hook & lift, car lift
o) Truck/semi delivery bay

There is _absolutely_ no rush to go buy a place.   Most of the
financing that will go into investing into this concept will come from
a property I still have to sell in NYC.   It's worth being patient and
finding Just The Right Place rather than rushing into something
because it meets some of the needs, but falls very short in other
ways.

If you would like to help with the search, send me an email at:
martinbogo at gmail.com



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