We've recently announced that we are looking for a new facility because the lease on our current facility is ending. I wanted to give the correct and clear information on the situation with our lease.
We are in the fifth year of a five year lease on our current space. Our lease began when we opened our doors to the public on January 1st, 2007 and it ends on December 31st 2011.
We are in the sixth unit of a five-unit flex building. Our landlord runs his business out of the other five units. When we first started here our landlord was using four of the six units and leasing two of them out. When the tenant in the fifth unit's lease was up, about a year or so ago, our landlord expanded his business into that unit. So he is now using five of the six units for his business.
We asked to extend our lease and our landlord declined, for one simple reason: his business is still growing and he needs the space we are currently in, to grow into. We understand this. He needs to grow his business and so do we, as we are also a tight fit in our current space. It should be made clear that this is an amicable parting, and he has written us a letter of recommendation to use with prospective landlords in our search for new space, and has offered some flexibility on move out dates.
So now we are searching for a new facility. This is quite a challenge, both financially and logistically. Financially it's a challenge because a new facility will require expenditure for upfit and the rent will likely be higher as we are looking for a bigger space. Logistically it will be a challenge because of the nature of our business. We can't exactly store the cats in banker's boxes while we find and upfit a new place! We have to have a new place ready before we can move out of the old one. So even though it is currently more than seven months before the end of our lease, we are looking in earnest for new space.
We are working with a commercial broker and have seen a few spaces, none have yet hit the sweet spot of functionality and affordability but we are looking!
You can help by contributing to our building fund to help us upfit a new place. We'll start a full fledged capital campaign for this shortly. Currently we are trying to win a Pepsi Refresh grant to help us with this effort, to help with that see voting instructions and vote for us in the month of May.
Also if you know of good places that are available in Cary or in the parts of Apex that are close to Cary, please let us know by email to catangels@gmail.com. We need at least 2500 square feet (hopefully more) with multiple rooms/offices and as much plumbing as possible (we would like to have a sink in every cat room in our new place). Ideal locations are probably former medical or veterinary spaces.
