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

Mon Apr 6 18:35:27 UTC 2009

As I mentioned before, I'm definitely down with this.  Would also be
interested in helping build out, etc. as much as my available time allows.
I'm sure you know how that goes.

Christie

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 11:19 AM, Martin Bogomolni <martinbogo at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>

-- 
I refuse to give up childish things.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20090406/6c8f6f41/attachment-0003.html>