Building the Building Buy vs Lease

Building the Building

It is currently unclear whether building a new building or retrofitting an existing building would be more cost-effective for our purposes. We re exploring the options, primarily there are two (or a vartion of these):

1. Buy & Build
2. Buy/Lease & Retrofit/Renovate

1. Buy & Build

One appealing option is to buy un-improved land, put down a slab (with plumbing/electrical) and place a pre-fabricated steel building on top. This could then be built out from the inside to be what we need it to be from day one.

• Land of sale in (or near) Hayden, ID
• LoopNet has a continual running report under the critera of Land Only, Hayden ID HERE.
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• Steel Master Building Systems
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• No need to waste time with complex, flimsy structures that gobble up a ton of time and many of your hard earned dollars. SteelMaster’s prefabricated warehouse building kits are a cost-effective, easy way to create adequate storage for your business.

• Our warehouse kits can range from  40’ to 80’ in width with no limits on lengths. The base cost of the building is approximately $8 to $12 per square foot.  SteelMaster also offers several different models that can accommodate different designs and floor plans depending upon your needs.

• We'd probably need around 80*300 (24,000 sq ft), but we could get away with less.
• 80*300 (24,000 sq ft) retails for $192,000-$288,000 (or less)
• 80*200 (16,000 sq ft) retails for $128,000-$192,000 (or less)
• *or less because who knows what clearance they may have at that time. The Favor of God (FOG) works in mysterious ways.

The Q-Model (information here)

2. Buy/Lease & Retrofit/Renovate

The more common option is to buy or lease an existing building and then renovate it to suit our needs. There are warehouses in CDA and Hayden that could work. However, so far each has had it's major drawbacks. Primarily, none of these comes set up the way we'd need them to be; therefore, all requiring extensive remodel (including new plumbing/electical), this may also mean digging up foundation to lay new pipe and drainage. Unless we forgoe all food service, it may still be cheaper to build from scratch.

The best contender we've seen so far was this one, and even it was too small to properly work long term. It also had inadequate parking for a facility inviting families.


~$750,000 to purchase, and then we'd still need to renovate quite a bit. Still not enough parking and not enough space inside long term.

827 W Prairie Ave
Hayden, ID 83835
Trulia Listing
1.21 acres lot size
11,338 sqft
$66/sqft