Rent Versus Buy Buy your building if you can. Its value will almost certainly appreciate, and you can write off all expenses, including the rent you pay yourself. Plus, you’re a remodeler, and you can transform the space to suit your needs.
Linda and Wayne Minde of Tri-Lite Builders, Chandler, Ariz., bought two-and-a-half acres in the mid-1980s, built a house on part of the property, and worked in a home office for several years before building a separate office 80 feet away. “We didn’t want to go into debt,” says Linda, Tri-Lite’s general manager, so they just “saved and saved” until they could pay for the construction outright.
Being in a residential community, the office looks like a house — and the Mindes suspect they will eventually subdivide the property and sell it as a house — but it has an attractive sign as well as plenty of room for vehicles, a showroom, a conference room, a shop area, and a separate cabinet shop that they rent out.
For years Ethan and Chris Landis split Landis Construction, Washington, D.C., into two offices, one in Ethan’s basement and the other in Chris’ attic. Finally the collective wear and tear from 12 employees and the frustration of two wives “pushed us out,” says Chris, an architect.
At an auction, the Landis brothers scooped up the property they now occupy, paying $340,000 for two lots in an industrial area near a Metro rail station. They tore down the existing warehouse and now operate out of the remaining office building, which they’re expanding into a 20,000-square-foot, three-story, energy-efficient “design destination” with construction-related tenants.
Landis Construction will occupy the third floor — more space than they now need — but the company expects to grow. “If you design it right and build it right, you can always lease out that space temporarily,” Ethan says.
If you do opt to rent, keep your options open. “You don’t want to sign a 25-year lease,” Nelson says. Select whatever lease term “gets you in for the cheapest rate over the shortest time.”
Keeping Costs Down Potomac Builders scored much of the furniture for its new office at an auction of the fallen accounting giant Arthur Andersen. “I got all this great stuff for $2,000,” says Dowd, including a beautiful desk, Aeron chairs, and a matching conference table and credenza. The remaining items were purchased at Ikea.
Most remodelers tap their industry connections to suppress costs. Ask if your suppliers will discount your cabinets, flooring, lighting, etc., or if your architect will discount your office design in return for the showcase before prospective buyers.
How much should you ultimately spend? Whatever your costs, Nelson says a professional office will pay off by “raising the baton on what you make, either your margins or the amount of fun you’re having.”
“We should have done this two years ago,” Dowd says. “We all seem much happier coming to work. There’s more enthusiasm, and staff meetings seem to be more productive.” There is also more serious job costing. “I would say if your business seems to be taking over your life, you need to get out of your house.”
Lofty Ambitions
A side from its vintage 1930 red-brick exterior, the office of Anthony Wilder Design/Build bears little resemblance to the firehouse it once was. Located on a tree-lined road a few miles outside Washington, D.C., the 7,000-square-foot building is awash with streaming sunlight and modern finishes, exposed framing, and a cathedral ceiling. Lofty both literally and figuratively, this space soars.
Anthony, design principal, and his wife and CEO, Elizabeth, bought the firehouse in the fall of 2003, after outgrowing their rented office condo and spending a futile year-plus looking at million-dollar fixer-uppers in their desired location of downtown Bethesda, Md. When their commercial real estate broker told them about the firehouse, 10 minutes away in the quiet neighborhood of Cabin John, Elizabeth says they “ran over within half an hour” and “were like little kids with excitement. I think it took 48 hours to ratify our contract,” she adds.
Although the firehouse needed work, it had proven itself as a viable commercial space. Located at the junction of two well-traveled roads and in front of a small shopping center, the building had plenty of free parking. Its previous owner, an architecture firm that had remodeled it years earlier, passed along two solid tenants — a dry cleaner, in a separate bay on the ground floor, and a commercial architecture firm, on the second. Finally, room remained for the 17 office employees of Anthony Wilder Design/Build — and the dogs that several bring with them to work.
The Wilders left the dry cleaner unchanged but transformed virtually everything else.
Their first priority was the ground floor, where they planned to relocate the commercial architecture firm. Among other changes, they moved the staircase from the back of the building to the right of the lobby, so people headed upstairs wouldn’t have to walk through the ground-floor office. To the left of the lobby, the Wilders created a conference room that they would share with the commercial architects. Featuring natural light and clean, modern furniture, both the lobby and the conference room set the stage for Anthony Wilder Design/Build, located at the top of the equally sun-flooded staircase.
For their office, the goal “was to put our signature on it and make it ours,” Elizabeth says. “We gutted everything and started over,” from the whitewashed ceiling (24 feet high at its peak), to the new roof and cupola, and even the all-white hospital-sized doors used as partitions. There are no conventional offices. “We wanted to create a studio environment where you can stand up and see people,” yet retain a sense of privacy while sitting, she explains.
Practical considerations drove other changes. The kitchen had been on the ground floor, but “we thought about how long it would take people to get downstairs,” Elizabeth says. The kitchen is now at the rear of the second floor, in a walled-off area with a separate library and bathroom.
Also distinctive is the loft built above the kitchen area, which functions as both a storage space and as Elizabeth’s office. “I can look out over the balcony and see everybody,” she says. High overhead are four skylights that open and close at the touch of a button, bringing fresh air and sunlight from above into the space below.
The overall effect is at once vibrant and professional, reverent and whimsical. “When a client walks into a space like this, they know we’re serious about design,” Elizabeth says, noting that the firm’s average job size has grown markedly since moving into the firehouse. “I think people get a sense of creativity” from the transformation. The whiteness, the openness — it’s “a blank slate,” she says, with the sky its potential.