Monday, January 12, 2009

More Details about Pomona's Old Firehouse


I spoke to Kevin Lockoff (sp?) from Coldwell Banker today. They are the leasing agent for the Old Firehouse building at 98 E. Alvarado. Kevin did not know a whole lot about the property, but he did answer a few questions. He said that the space is suitable for a restaurant and is 5100 square feet. He said that the rent should be $1.50 a square foot "triple net," which he explained to be the property tax, insurance and maintenance charges. I'm not sure what that means in terms of rent.

John Clifford is partly correct below when he posted that the owner of the old Firehouse Restaurant property is the same as the owner of the abandoned Stater Bros. on lower Garey. According to Kevin, a partnership owns both properties, but the partnerships are slightly different, but contain some of the same individuals. He believes they are based in Los Angeles. He believes the partnership that owns the property on Alvarado is called The Old Firehouse L.L.C.

Kevin describes the owners as "very motivated." He thinks the reason for the push to lease it now has to do with a recent change in the make-up of the partnership.

I asked him about the rumored asbestos work that would be required to bring it up to code, and he commented that it was "an interesting question," but he had no specifics.

If anyone else knows more, please feel free to post.

Today's little bird talking to the goddess is by Emily Balivet.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

interesting to learn about that building and hope for the best! My question is this: 5100 square feet @ $1.50 per = HOLY SMOKE!!?
7650/mo...am I confused?

uh...wow. I hope the owners don't get their hopes up.

Anonymous said...

A "triple net" lease is one where the tenant is solely responsible for paying all property taxes, maintenance and insurance.

John Clifford said...

Actually $1.50 per foot is not terrible. Remember, this is commercial property that should be bringing in money. Hot areas (I know about Hollywood) can be around $5/sq. ft. triple net. Using that, $1.50 is really a very low lease rate.

Sandra said...

Emily Balivet sells on Etsy -- I love her work! (Etsy, by the way, is where I purchased my icon photo, a painting by Karen Kearney)

John Clifford said...

Got a call this morning that there was now a dumpster behind the firehouse and they were throwing out a bunch of stuff. So I took a jaunt down the road with the idea of doing some "dumpster diving."

None of the things being thrown out, at least at the moment, held no interest for me but I did get a chance to sneak in the back door and take a look around. It appears that they're throwing out broken junk and doing a general cleaning. There were two guys who didn't seem to speak English who were working by themselves.

I'm always suspicious when work is being done on a Sunday, especially at commercial properties, but nothing untoward seemed to be being done at the moment. I'll certainly be keeping track to see how this cleanup progresses