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A Medical Emergency Room On Every Corner

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Medical emergency room construction can be found everywhere in Dallas these days. Gas stations are being replaced with medical facilities. These new facilities are filling a niche offering emergency procedures outside of a hospital emergency room.

Current studies indicate that there are five hundred to six hundred free standing emergency medical facilities in forty states. Texas has the majority of these free standing emergency facilities.

Medical Emergency RoomIn 2009 the Texas Legislature passed the Texas Freestanding Emergency Medical Care Facility Licensing Act. These emergency facilities are designed to care for patients with true medical emergencies just as a hospital would administer. These locations offer imaging and diagnostic services that are not required in urgent care facilities.

Neighborhood Medical Emergency Room

Hospitals and large medical providers are taking their medical emergency rooms to the market as a retail location instead of a traditional hospital. In the past it was acceptable to travel to a hospital. Now people are looking for convenience in their lives and this includes the healthcare that they receive. The Texas Association of Free Standing Emergency Centers  currently has over 44 members. A clear sign of the size of this industry.

Just like national retailers study the demographics of the market before they open a restaurant or store the Free Standing Medical Room operators are performing their own demographic analysis.

Free standing medical centers like to locate in high traffic areas similar to retail operators. They trend to like high income areas where the potential customers are already using the services of other businesses in the area.

The North Texas market is beginning to see some of the larger hospitals are aggressively expanding into the medical emergency market. Both Baylor and Texas Health Resources are entering this business space.

These free standing medical care facilities are potentially very profitable if they are located in the right demographics. If you have an underperforming retail location but the demographics are appealing to Medical Emergancy Room you should consider marketing your property to one of these organizations.

Dallas Office Construction Costs

The construction of these facilities can be very expensive. They require all of the backup systems that a traditional medical emergency room requires and X-ray accommodations as well. The interior construction cost per square foot can range from $90 to $110 per square foot. Texas State law requires that these facilities are comparable with hospital emergency rooms so the construction must be equal as well.

When you consider the primary care facilities, emergency room facilities and medical offices throughout the Dallas area there are millions of square feet that are occupied by doctors. It is important that the best option is selected for Dallas medical space when a physician is contemplating a new office or an expansion of an existing medical office. Medical emergency room space is a more complex transaction since be design the location must have the full emergency room facilities required for critical care patients.

Tenant Representation Services

By working with a knowledgeable commercial real estate professional the doctor will be able to locate the ideal location for their practice and negotiate the best terms and conditions. Looking for the right space sometimes is easy. Negotiating the best deal takes a professional office tenant representive.

Renewal Option Strategical Negotiation For Tenants

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Renewal option strategical negotiation most likely wasn’t the most important topic you negotiated your original lease with your present landlord. However you now are looking at the end of your lease term and you need to know the best way to take advantage of your renewal option. he renewal clause gives you the opportunity to decide if you want to extend your original lease before your present lease expires.

The catch is that you have to follow the requirements of the renewal clause precisely or a tenant may loos e their opportunity to exercise their right to renew. This is why it is important to consider the renewal option before you sign the original lease. The terms and conditions expressed in the renewal clause are set once the original lease is signed.

Renewal Option Key Elements

They key elements of the renewal option strategical negation are usually defined by terms in the lease. Some of these terms are fair market value, notice period, rental rate, improvement allowance and term.

renewal option

Fair Market Value: In many landlord leases they will state that the rental rate at the time lease option is exercised the new rental rate will be at fair market value. This is a very loose definition and needs to be more specific. You want to have a little to the landlords decision as to what fair market value is when the option is exercised. I often like to use language that specifies the addresses of comparable buildings that indicated the most recent lease terms on leases completed in the past six months define fair market vale. You can also use leases completed in the landlord’s buildings over the past six months. In the event that both parties cannot agree on fair market value there should be a mechanism for arbitration inserted into the renewal option clause.

Notice Period: Two points to be discussed regarding the notice period. First as a tenant you want to have as much time as possible to evaluate your options so you want a long notice period. A twelve month period is an excellent option. Additionally the tenant has a responsibility to give notice to the landlord that they are going to exercise their option. Don’t forget to give your landlord notice before the timeline expires.

Rental Rate: If you negotiate a lease with a renewal option that has a predetermined rental rate negotiated into the option. This is not something that happens very often.

Improvement Allowance: When a new lease is negotiated it usually has new office space and amenities. At the end of a seven year term the walls scuffed and carpet worn. You may even want to change some of the offices sizes. Therefor it is important that the renewal option clause also has conditions to address a new construction allowance. You can tie the allowance to what your negotiated in the original lease with an CPI increase or base it upon what your landlord has offered to tenant over the past six months with proration of the allowance based upon the term of the renewal compared to the term of the offer made to others.

Term: this addresses the length of the renewal period. It is typical to get a three, five or ten year period based upon the type of business. A doctor usually would like a longer term and a new business may want a three year term.

While negotiating the renewal option remember that the only party that benefits from the renewal option is the Tenant. There really isn’t a benefit to the landlord because it encumbers his property. He has to hold the space until the notice period expires because he doesn’t know if the tenant will exercise the option or not.

This clause doesn’t appear to be important during the excitement of negotiating a lease in a new space. However it could have a big impact upon your business when the lease is ready to expire. Don’t overlook the importance of properly negotiating the renewal option clause.

Helping Clients Locate Office Space

A professional tenant representative and attorney can help you insure that this clause is properly negotiated and documented in your lease. This is just one of the many services offered in our tenant representation service.

 

 

Tenant Representation Services

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When I started Finch Commercial Realty, Inc. in 2001 I had a vision of offering a full service tenant representation services company that brings the benefit of many years of training and experience representing landlords for many years. This strategy has allowed me to help many tenants find and negotiate exceptional office leases.

Sometimes people still ask me what is it that you do. There is so much more to our service than giving a client the address of a quality property. I though I would write down some highlights of our service.

Initial Client Meeting

  • Initial site assessment of the present use of the clients space
  • Creation of a program to analyze the exact amount of square footage the client will need based upon their projected business plan
  • Analysis of the office market to determine which markets best meet the clients needs including but not limited to commute times, employee recruiting, growth projections, amenities and quality of life.

Property Tour and Selection

  • Preparation of a property tour that contains properties that meet the criteria established by the client. The tour is designed to accomplish two goals. First give the client quality options that meet their criteria and secondly to give the client a good understanding of the market so they can determine the value propositions of each option.
  • The client usually will select three to four properties that are of interest and we will prepare a detailed request for proposal and send the document to the land landlord’s agents for a response.

Getting Solid Rental Expense Estimations and Tenant Representation Services

  • Within a few days we prepare an analysis of the landlord’s letter of intent so that our clients will know the exact expense of each offer. This way the client can compare each option and have a good understanding of the value proposition of each space.
  • Normally the client will narrow the prospective option down to two buildings at this point and we will begin to focus on some of the finer points of the negotiation one of which is a detailed space plan.
  • Each landlord will provide an architect to produce a space plan that can be used to get bids from contractors to design the clients new office. This is an important step because we want to have a turn-key construction in our lease. (Sometimes we may not but this depends on the specifics of each transaction.)
  • Once we have the construction bids back we can finalize the economic terms and other matters associated with the lease and sign a letter of intent so that the landlord may prepare a lease document.

Lease Preparation

  • Upon delivery of the lease document we will have our attorney review the document to modify the landlord’s lease and usually make it a little more balance.
  • The lease negotiation process can take a few days to be completed.

Lease Execution and Construction

  • Upon lease execution the construction process will begin and we will have meetings with the contractor and architect through the process to ensure that the space is being build to our client’s specifications.

Move In Day!

  • Usually after a few weeks the space will be deliverable to our tenant and we will accompany them to wake the premises and perform the inspection to formulate a punch list.
  • Our client now has their keys and they have a new space that meets the needs that they discussed when we first met.
  • We will follow up with the landlord and client to make sure the punch list items are completed.

There are many small but important tasks that are performed in this process but this gives you an overall understanding of our Tenant representation services. As you can see that to complete this process correctly you need to give yourself enough time so don’t procrastinate. A well organized office tenant representative can walk the client through this system and achieve superior results.

Dallas Office Subleases

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After years of leasing office space by far the most rewarding type of leasing is Dallas office subleases. There are two main reasons that I enjoy this type of commercial brokerage.

  • The Sublessor (Tenant) usually has a space they do not want and they are looking for some type of financial relief from their lease obligation.
  • The Sublessee (Sub-Tenant) is usually looking for a below market leasing opportunity with a shorter term lease.

Dallas office subleases

Opportunity Is Everywhere You Just Need To Know Where To Look

My opportunity is to help both sides negotiate a quality Dallas office sublease that will be approved by the Landlord. There are a few things that both sides need to take into consideration before they enter into a sublease contract.

  • The master lease usually has a sublease clause that must be fully understood before the potential sublessor places the space on the market.
  • Has the prospective sublessee already had contact with the landlord’s leasing agent? Some sublease clauses prevent the tenant from subleasing to a prospective subtenant if the landlord has already had contact with the prospect.
  • Even though a sublease is agreed upon by the sublessor and subtenant the landlord has the right to approve the sublease and can reject the sublease. It is most important to have the landlord’s approval on every sublease.
  • The subtenant must get a copy of the master lease and all addendum’s because the landlord will expect the subtenant to honor the terms and conditions established master lease one of which that needs to be taken into consideration is the master lease’s insurance requirements.

Timing Effects Dallas Office Subleases

Timing is an important consideration for both parties but especially for the prospective subtenant. Once the sublease is agreed to by both parties it will then be presented to the landlord for approval. The landlord will usually want the following items from the prospective sub tenant.

  • A current balance sheet and two years of cash flow statements
  • A summary of the history of the company and its business
  • Information on the subtenants officers

After the landlord has the sublease and the requested subtenant information they will review the information. One of their considerations will be to determine of the have another prospective tenant that would like to occupy the Dallas office sublease premises for a longer term lease, which creates more value for the landlord. Unfortunately it can take a few weeks in some instances to get the landlords approval but in most cases approval usually comes within five days.

Getting Ready To Move Into Your Space!

While the subtenant is waiting for approval this is a good time to contact your insurance agent and ask them to get everything ready to process your insurance request when the landlord approves the sublease. Most landlords will not let a subtenant occupy the premises until they have a certificate of insurance that is compliant with the master lease. It isn’t fun to show up with a moving truck and be denied the opportunity to occupy the building because of failure to have a certificate of insurance.

 

Fee Sharing

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Fee Sharing

Fee Sharing is sometimes an a necessary tool that tenant representatives use to earn the business from their clients. It also helps to offset some of the clients expenses associated with leasing space. This approach tends to make sense when the tenant is a large national contract or has a significant amount of square footage that they are leasing.

There are special disclosure requirements that are required by the Texas Real Estate Commission that are necessary when a broker is offering their client a fee sharing option. In the Tenant Representation Contract or any advertisement the broker must inform the potential prospect that an offer to rebate a portion of the broker’s commission must disclose that the payment is subject to the consent of the party that the broker represents in the transaction. The broker must also disclose if the offer is subject to any contingency’s. Visit this link on Commission Rebates from TREC for more information.

It is important at the time that your broker negotiates the commission agreement with the landlord or the landlord’s broker that the commission agreement doesn’t preclude the tenant’s broker from any fee sharing arrangement. Many landlord’s standard commission agreements don’t allow fee sharing. This can be corrected in the negotiations but it could be a big issue if it is not included in the commission agreement one the lease is signed.

Any commission that is rebated must be given to the tenant representative’s principle. The rebated portion cannot be given to any other person or entity.

So when does it make good business sense to fee share with a client to gain their business? A good broker doesn’t want to give away their hard earned commission and there are many expenses that need to be considered. If you are working for one of the larger brokerage houses they can take up to fifty percent of your commission. So if you are representing a five thousand square foot office tenant on a three year term and you agree top fee share twenty five percent of the commission, you are doing all the work your client gets twenty five percent off the top, your firm gets fifty percent of the remainder and you earn a total of thirty five percent.

On the five thousand square foot example a tenant representative is going to a $8,268.75 commission if the overall rental rate is  $35 on a three year lease term.  The total commission paid is $23,625. Obviously the longer the term the more an individual agent will earn.

My rules for fee sharing that I like to use are:

  • Fee share on five year or longer term
  • Fee share with tenants that have multiple locations and you represent them those locations
  • Rebait a portion of the commission if the lease is 3 years or longer and is above 10,000 square feet for office space or 20,000 square feet for industrial.
  • The overall effective rental rate needs to justify fee sharing.
  • The reputation and credit of the client being represented must be in good standing

It is helpful that I work for my own Dallas tenant representation firm and this gives me more flexibility to consider a commission rebate option for my clients because I don’t have the requirement to split the fee with the brokerage house. Many times I have used fee sharing to help my clients with data,  cabling moving and other expenses associated with the activity of leasing office space.

Dallas Office Tenant Representative Helping You

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You might be an expert business person. You could have leased five office spaces during your career. The thought of considering  an outsider to help you with office  location services appears to be unproductive. In fact you might be thinking that anybody could find a work place so it has to be easy for you.  What possible value could Dallas office tenant representative bring to your lease transaction?

Dallas office tenant representativeIt is true that anybody can find a workplace space. That does not take much effort. However finding the best choice on your business. Considering all possible outcomes, that is a different matter altogether.

You may be facing a lease renewal and it is an effortless decision to just sign the lease amendment. Especially if  your business has  been in the a  office for a while and it is functioning well for your business. Your staff like the location and everybody is utilized besides the commute beyond just the office. The simplest decision would be to renew your lease.

The decision, at hand, is as the manager responsible for the profitability of your organization is the simple lease renewal the best choice for your organization? To get this answer you need to avoid your daily tasks and go into the Dallas office marketplace to find what your options are and which is the best recommendation for your business partners.

You may take the simple route and start searching the web for space or even drive around Dallas in your car writing phone numbers and names to call. Once you have this documentation you can call all these brokers and try to resemble you could have market experience and also you know greater than they actually about real estate.

When broker, on the sign,  determines that the building you called on does not have the space you require they could pitch you for other buildings that could be a fit. Congratulations your email now possesses twenty messages from salesmen calling you.

There is a better way. Do you know any time you call the broker from the sign they are currently acquiring a commission to lease the property for the owner. There are professional brokers the Dallas Fort Worth office market that do not represent the owners, they represent tenants. A Dallas office tenant representative is paid a portion of the commission which the broker on the sign would earn. The expense to your firm is calculated into the proposed rental rate and it is generally a portion of the commission that the landlords broker would get. You may want to read this article on tenant representation commissions.

Why would you utilize a professional office tenant representative? A greater question could be why wouldn’t you utilize the likes of real estate professional which has only one role. To help you get what you want and represent only your interests?

Dallas tenant representative services include:

  • Helping you forecast your present office needs and searching the long run to position your business allowing you so much space you will have with growth
  • Study of your floorspace requirements. So many times unsophisticated office users concentrate on the price per square foot and forget the compound that drives the entire rental expenses is the square footage. Therefor it is more than crucial that the tenant has the right square footage. Not to much, to not little just right.
  • A Dallas office tenant representative is active in market and talks with landlord’s brokers multiple times each day. They’ve inside info on market rental rates, landlord concessions as well as other important issues that are only able to be accomplished by being active in the Dallas office market on every day basis. There is no way a tenant can obtain this valuable information reading an account found on the internet.
  • Info is key. In addition to traditional databases a high quality tenant representative receives numerous fliers daily off of the brokerage community with the most modern offers and valuable information about sublease opportunities.
  • Subleases are the easiest way to go rental expense and go for perks like office furniture as well as other assets that could be section of the lease negotiation. Most certainly you will not find out about a sublease by calling a landlord’s broker because it wouldn’t be in their client’s best interests to disclose this documentation to a prospective tenant.
  • Lease analysis is more than important when comparing offers. A Dallas tenant representation broker would surely have the resources to simply summarize the lease options so that our client could make good decisions and simply compare the different offers.
  • You can enjoy a single point of contact throughout the whole process. You won’t be getting all of the sales pitches from other brokers. Everyone will reach your Dallas office tenant representative and he or she will deliver the data to you. You will not have voice mailbox filled with annoying messages.
  • The devil is in the details. A seasoned Dallas office tenant representative broker can work along with your attorney to take into consideration the lease and make sure that today s market language is as part of your lease. Landlord’s provides you with their standard lease. It is carefully crafted by their attorney to represent their interests.  It is important that you have your attorney review the lease and to have a qualified office broker working with your attorney.

There are such a lot more  benefits to share but I will save them for another time. This is an exciting time for your business. You may actually improve your office location and not boost your expenses. Enjoy the experience and by working with a qualified Dallas office tenant representative you will learn that there are more options available than you previously though.

We help you find the office space you want.

Office Leasing Specialists

We specialize in locating and negotiation all types of office space leases including:
Multi Tenant From high rise to single story. See Location
Single Tenant from 2,000 square feet to 300,000 square feet See Location
Flex Office Single story mixed use office space See Location