[EricH]

Originally Posted by DeepWater

Can anyone relay their experience with using an empty commercial store type building? Did you have to lease it or were you able to get it as a donation?

Use was donated...sort of. The church that runs our school owns a (now) empty grocery store building, which was empty. Robotics (FRC + 3 FLL teams) uses the warehouse area; nowadays, the church youth group uses what was the main store. The SCRRF Fall Classic was run at this site, after some rework to get it usable by the youth department (and robotics, for that matter).

Originally Posted by DeepWater

If the owner does donate the use of the building for a few months can they take it as a tax write-off? Since the mall closes at 9:00 how would we work late into the night? How much does electricity run per month to heat a Kmart size building?

I am not sure. We couldn't figure out how to turn the heat on...bring on the space heaters! As for mall use...I think one of the NY teams worked in a mall for a while. They could probably tell you how to negotiate late-nighters. Not sure about tax write-off either.

Originally Posted by DeepWater

Where would we start? At the realtor that has the building listed for sale?

That would be a good place. They can tell you who really owns the building and how desperate they are to have it occupied. The more desperate, the better (for your purposes). But you're right; other costs should be considered, and the owner could probably tell you those.

One other thing--if you do get a building like a large store, learn where the circuit breakers are and what each controls. Some control lights; I know of one that controlled another breaker panel; and one that controlled an outlet needing work was in an unexpected location (e.g. upstairs with the A/C equipment). Label the breakers you need to use first thing.

Oh, and if you are successful, turn it into an area robotics clubhouse if you can. Full field area...lots of floor space for tools...multiple teams could build there. Actually, when we had our shop set up, we invited other teams over to use our resources, which made life more fun.