Your business premises have a significant impact on the subsequent success of your enterprise, which means it’s vital to find the right home for your venture. Buying or leasing commercial premises remain popular options for businesses looking for new sites, but developing your own premises can have many advantages.
Being able to create a bespoke floorplan enables you to optimise efficiency, for example, while investing in property can boost your company’s portfolio of capital assets. Of course, you’ll want to ensure that the process goes smoothly if you’re considering developing commercial property. To get started, take a look at these top tips for building your own business premises:
1. Prioritise the Location
As you might expect, the location of your business premises is of paramount importance. If you’re running a customer-facing enterprise, you’ll need to ensure that your location is a convenient place for your target audience to access. Similarly, you might want to select a location that already offers a significant amount of footfall.
However, even if customers and clients won’t be visiting your premises, location is still extremely important. When you’re hiring staff, for example, the location of your premises will affect how many candidates apply for the role. Furthermore, less popular locations might mean you need to offer higher salaries to attract the best talent.
With so much riding on the location of your premises, it’s essential to conduct thorough market research before deciding which site is right for you. By assessing current footfall, finding out how far customers are willing to travel and exploring the local job market, you can get an idea of which locations might be right for your next business premises.
2. Survey Potential Sites
Once you begin to identify potential sites for development, you’ll need to carry out thorough evaluations and assessments. After all, you don’t want to invest in land and then find out it’s protected or that construction is prohibited.
Although there are a number of different site surveys that should be carried out prior to development, a biodiversity net gain assessment is particularly important. Although the biodiversity net gain regulations are not yet mandatory, they are expected to be introduced under the incoming Environment Bill and some local authorities are already using biodiversity assessments when evaluating planning applications.
At first glance, the new requirements may seem complex and confusing, so don’t panic if you need help understanding a biodiversity net gain survey or finding out what impact it has on your development strategy. With BNG, you can have any site assessed in a rapid timeframe and learn whether potential developments are likely to be approved under the new regulations. Undertaken by experienced ecologists, a biodiversity net gain assessment determines how many biodiversity units are gained or lost when a potential development goes ahead. As new regulations state that developments must deliver a 10% biodiversity net gain, it’s going to be critical for landowners, businesses and developers to incorporate and ensure there is a net gain into their building plans.
By including a biodiversity net gain assessment into your suite of land surveys, you can access all the information you need to determine whether a particular site is going to be a viable and cost-effective location for your new business premises.
3. Maximise Efficiency
One of the major advantages associated with building your own premises, as opposed to buying or renting existing structures, is the opportunity to create a custom floorplan. No matter what type of business you’re running, having the flexibility to design a bespoke site can transform your operations and allow you to operate with maximum efficiency.
In the warehouse and logistics industry, for example, space is always at a premium and new technology is being introduced to optimise efficiency and productivity. However, many existing premises aren’t equipped for the latest tech or weren’t built with new innovations in mind. By designing your own premises and using the opportunity to maximise efficiency, you can ensure that your future operations facilitate minimal waste and maximum outputs.
4. Find the Right Construction Firm
As well as scouring different areas to find the best site for your new premises, you’ll also need to liaise with various construction firms to find the right one to build a new home for your enterprise. Hiring a construction firm might sound fairly straightforward, but it’s worth taking the time to ensure you partner with the right team.
There are many different aspects to construction, so choosing a firm that can handle the project from start to finish may be advantageous. Although most firms will use subcontractors for some elements of the development, they’ll take ownership of the project and manage every aspect of it. This minimises the role you’ll need to play in overseeing the development and ensure that it’s managed by experienced professionals.
Choosing a construction firm that specialises in the type of premises you want to build can also be beneficial. Designing a warehouse can require a different set of expertise to designing an office building or a restaurant, for example. By working with architects, designers and builders that have extensive experience in relevant fields, you can streamline the process and ensure maximum success.
5. Access Funding in Advance
Buying or building commercial premises can be a costly endeavour, but it can also offer high rewards. Purchasing land and developing property typically offers a higher return than buying existing premises, so be sure to factor this in when you’re identifying potential sites and locations for your company to operate from.
Most companies will require external funding in order to buy or build business premises, so you’ll need to determine what type of financing is most suitable for your venture. Commercial loans, P2P lending, venture capital or simply selling shares in your company can all be viable ways to access the funding you need to purchase land and begin development.
However, it’s vital to ensure that your financial forecasts are accurate and include safeguards to manage unexpected budget increases. Far too many businesses have failed simply because they ran out of funds partway through construction. By researching the market thoroughly and getting your financial strategies analysed by external professionals, you’ll have peace of mind that your budgetary and financial plans are viable and will offer an impressive return.
Planning for the Future and Growing Your Business
When you’re searching for potential new sites for your business premises, don’t forget to factor in possible growth plans and expansions. Choosing a site that gives you the opportunity to increase the size of your premises in the future can be a savvy way to fast-track business growth. Similarly, incorporating this into the design stage will ensure that expansion can take place in a way that enhances your operations and optimises efficiency.
Although buying or leasing commercial premises can seem like an easier option than building your own structures, you don’t get the same level of control or creative freedom when you’re purchasing existing structures. By choosing to design and build your own premises, however, you can create commercial properties that are custom-built for your business. In doing so, you can shape your enterprise from the ground up, acquire capital assets and maximise your commercial success.
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