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This would be a leased, shared property.
The asking price is $10/sf for 5000sf.
By our measurements, the actual interior space (excluding the two stairwells) is about 4450sf. The furnace room occupies about 90sf of that.
There is a diagram (PDF) of the space.
There are also some photographs of the exterior and interior of the building taken by Tim S.
Development in the area:
Several office buildings have been constructed nearby in the past few years, and more are planned.
Waltham is actively trying to get funding to put through a connecting road from Route 117 to Route 20, and will probably succeed once the economy starts improving.
The parcel of which this building is a part will probably be sold and developed as a hotel within a few years after that road is approved.
Other city / town issues:
Waltham has substantially raised residential property assessments recently, and will probably raise commercial property assessments soon.
Costs relative to our current location:
No rental income.
What else?
Savings relative to our current location:
No need to pay for building insurance. [We still need content and liability insurance.]
No depreciation on the building.
No taxes on the rented part of the building.
What else?
The building:
Brick over concrete block construction.
The first floor sits directly on a concrete slab.
The second floor is supported by full-width trusses, so there are no structural walls or pillars in the first-floor space.
Two stories plus HVAC on the roof:
First floor: about 4360sf by our measurements.
Second floor: vacant.
Loading dock at one side, serving the first floor only.
The loading dock is for low-floor trucks (about 30" height).
We're looking at the first floor.
Divided into two large areas, one medium-sized area, and several smaller rooms, plus a furnace room and men's and women's bathrooms.
Everything except the large unfinished area has 9' 10" dropped ceilings (about 1" below the tops of the partitions).
All windows are openable.
It's in good shape, but we'd need to do some refitting.
Floor loading is limited only by the strength of concrete in compression.
We should seriously consider removing all of the partitions between the bathrooms and the loading dock, then installing a 'cold lock' wall around the loading dock door, leaving a rectangular (except for the furnace room taking a bite out of one corner) unfinished storage area of about 1700sf.
We should also seriously consider removing the partitions separating the three rooms along the back wall, leaving a single room a bit larger than the Blue Room, and possibly also removing some of the other partitions at that end of the building.
Emergencies:
There is no sprinkler (or other fire suppression) system.
There are exits at both ends of the building.
There is some emergency lighting.
Utilities:
The electric service entrances for both floors are in the middle of the second floor! There are separate electric meters for the first and second floors, and the circuit breaker for the first-floor air-conditioning. The circuit breaker panel for the first floor is next to the door to the first-floor women's room, and has 37 single breakers, 2 double breakers, and one empty slot.
The telephone punchdown blocks are in the furnace room.
The furnace room contains one oil burner serving both the first and second floors.
Heat is mostly baseboard forced hot water (some 2.5" deep by 8.5" high, others 3.5" deep by 10" high), with supplemental electric baseboard heat in the corner office and the office on the right wall, and overhead hot air in the unfinished space.
Separate air-conditioning units for the first and second floors are located on the roof (not yet seen).
Parking: to be negotiated. There appears to be no difficulty in obtaining 2-3 spaces 24x7 and many more evenings and weekends.
External lighting:
Lights are mounted about 15' high over both entrances and the loading dock. They have not been tested.
The area is fairly dark at night when these lights are off.
Area:
At the rear of a large parking lot on the south side of Route 117 and 200-300 yards west of Route 128 in Waltham.
Commercial area.
Food:
None within walking distance.
The closest known food sources are a pizza shop .5 mile east on Route 117 and a Pizzeria Uno .5 mile along Bear Hill Road.
Post Office:
Main branch: 1.5 mile (along Main Street)
Access by car:
.9 miles (3 minutes, 3 traffic lights) from the Route 128 / Route 20 interchange
"T" access (evening and weekend):
.25 mile from the next-to-last stop on bus route 70
High-speed Internet access:
We should be able to get some form of DSL, since we're only 1.7 road miles from the telephone central office, which definitely is wired for DSL by several providers, and the cables seem to follow the roads in this case.
There are two cable companies in Waltham (Comcast and RCN, both on the poles near the building) so cable should be an option if they're willing to deal with a 501(c)3 organization. (It's not clear how they'd get a drop to us; power, telephone, etc. arrive underground.)
Minor issues:
The locking mechanism on the loading dock door is broken.
This page is maintained by Dave Anderson, and was last modified at 10:45 am on 5 June 2003.
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