Poll - Space Rental

DMS General
#1

I am interested in doing a bit of a poll of the membership to see what could be the best way to monetize extra space.

Some ballpark numbers are the cost of 100 Square feet is approx 71 dollars since we wont’ achieve good efficiency and we have ultilities, walkways, etc to pay in addition to that cost let’s say that DMS real cost is 1 Dollar a square foot per month to keep the math simple.

So DMS actual cost is 100 for every 100 Square feet.

I think a fair price would be to charge 3 dollars per square feet to cover our costs and make some money and not assume 100% occupancy.

So at $300 a month for a 10 x 10 who would want to have one for a minumum of 3 months?

The idea would be this would be a taped up area there would no walls, power, etc. (Not saying you may not get power in the future but for the purpose of this poll just space) You could pallet racks here, you could put in a desk, you could put in your own tool box, you can hula hoop there all day.

  • I would rent a 10x10 space.
  • I would not rent a space.

0 voters

  • I would rent a 4x4x3 space such as a pallet rack.
  • I would not rent a 4x4x3 space

0 voters

#2

I believe you are priced way too high per square foot. Charging $300 per month for 100sq foot…wow. You can rent your own building and have 4 walls and your own bathroom for about that anywhere included at your price. And this is not permanent, when DMS wants to expand you would have to vacate the space whenever it is desired. Making $300 per month for a very small space not desirable or worth it. Last I checked, DMS was supposed to be Non-profit so making 66.66% profit off of members seems a little steep. You may have better luck if it was priced at most $1.25 per sq foot, still covers cost for DMS and members can have a designated area for certain length of time. Why you need to make $2,400 per member per year for a very small amount of room I have a hard time understanding.

8 Likes
#3

I wouldn’t mind something like a pallet rack work of rental space for a reasonable monthly fee. I feel like it would fit well with the makerspace’s future needs in that we could sell it for “project” storage, and then when we needed the space at a later date, start reclaiming and re-arranging until we got the space we needed.

I know personally, I’m about a 45 min drive from the space, and loading up a project to come weld, and then having to tear it down because the storage area is always full, load it back up, I would totally spend something monthly to be able to have a “private” pallet rack to house project or two.

2 Likes
#4

Yeah but you can’t rent a space inside DMS at any other price. It’s a limited commodity, the space should absolutely be making a large profit on it, not selling at/near cost.

#5

The cost would need to make sense. I could see myself paying in the $300 range for storage for large projects for around 3 months at a time. Paying $1K to rent 100 sq ft would be difficult to justify for most household or hobby projects. I thought that DMS wanted to discourage business owners from using the tools for their business to avoid issues with tool availability…but at that price it really only makes sense for people with a business or who are using the tools a lot to rent space.

6 Likes
#6

Public Storage near the space offers a 10x10 inside unit for $74 per month; $88 per month for a drive-up 10x10. No it’s not at the space, but it’s also not just a square taped off on the floor where any passerby could mess with your stuff.

$300 per month for an unsecured square of floor is kinda ridiculous IMO.

11 Likes
#7

Thanks for the welcome Halachal!
From my understanding, All members share the cost for the space and tools by way of membership, materials, and usage fees. Why should there be an additional cost of 3X’s for a space that is already paid for by our memberhsip?
I dont know the exact square footage of the current space, but I am assuming it is maybe close to 8,000+sq ft so at $50 per month per member = about $0.006 per square foot per month per person to rent space and access tools. That’s only 500X less than what has been proposed for in this poll.

Having something more reasonable would be better for the community as a whole and not create an “elite” space that only few can really afford, even though we all pay towards the same space.

This also seems to go against this statement as well on the FAQ:
“We try to keep costs low for our members and cover as much as we can from membership dues.”

4 Likes
#8

If I were renting space from DMS, I’d expect a bit more than a taped-off location on the floor or a pallet rack. A lockable cage on the floor or something similar on a pallet rack (or large locker) would be a minimum in my book.

4 Likes
#9

A lockable cage with at least one duplex 110 outlet inside it, and access to the camera feed.

2 Likes
#10

I would be fine with a taped off square on the floor if I needed to rent a space at DMS. Perhaps the spaces with a lockable cage and electricity could be $300/month.

2 Likes
#11
  • Lockable cage : relatively cheap and easy to deploy
  • Access to the camera feed : a little bit of administrative overhead, but also not too troublesome to implement
  • 110 outlet : markedly more expensive to deploy, cutting into ROI, because…
    • Electrician
    • Building permits
    • Panel capacity

Edit: I believe we’d much rather describe, market, and expect these to be storage rather than studio/workspace since I believe that any sort of occupancy expectation has greater standards.

3 Likes
#12
  1. Electricity (i.e., building lights and air conditioning)
  2. Insurance (property insurance, not personal insurance)
  3. Build out (fence and/or table)
  4. 25% aisle space
  5. Cost to administer

This would be completely optional - so it’s not “per member”. Other places in the area, and many other Makerspaces, rent out “studios*” so we’re just checking to see if it’s an option for us.

  • Definition of studio varies from place to place, and hence so does the cost.
1 Like
#13

Why not use public storage rates as a point of reference?

If it is under-utilized space then instead of a “make money from it mindset”, how about taking an offset cost mindset until space is needed/utilized for DMS purposes; at which time the space would become unavailable or there will need to be a premium on it because DMS is “giving it up” in favor of the renter.

5 Likes
#14

Thanks for attempting to clarify that John.

They said without elecricity, literally a square taped space.
Nor did they mention anything about additionally covering those items stored under a group insurance, which may be difficult if there really is a claim. The aisle cost was already accounted for $71 vs $100. How high are estimated Administrative costs for the proposed space units as described?

Sorry, I am just working with the information stated in the poll. If it is completed walled off or “caged” like a studio with electricity, insurance, etc. Then $300 seems closer to a fair price. Unfortunately, that was not included in the poll from what I see.

2 Likes
#15

Aisle cost was not accounted for at $71 dollars, also what is the cost of a cage as that would need to be absorbed which would futher increase the cost.

To clarify the insurance is not for something stolen the insurance is if the building burns or is destroyed.

1 Like
#16

Why would I use public storage rates as refrence vs actual costs?

1 Like
#17

As a reference of what’s reasonable for most people to rent.
$3 sq/ft isn’t reasonable IMO, as it feels like a nickel and dime kinda deal.
That being said, obviously, it can’t be below cost.
Which is why I mentioned:

#18

@Ferman I tried to do it above but give it a try I give you 5K square feet square of open space. DMS cost is $1 a square foot.

How much would you need to charge to not loose money?

Be sure to account for walk space as well as occupancy.

#19

The express purpose of this is to generate revenue for DMS while appealing to the truism that convenience is king. Sure, you can go rent from Public Storage or Cubesmart or even the lot where we store the vehicles if you don’t need 4 walls and a roof. But those logistics are far more time-consuming than on-site storage where you will typically only need transportation twice. The value we’re offering - other than whatever warm fuzzy you get about helping the space - is time savings : no need to move bulk materials nor in-process work pieces back and forth.

I do not believe that this is intended to eliminate free project storage. Of course, availability of free storage is always tight since its main rationing mechanisms are petitioning for an extension coupled with Logistics Committee exercising its discretion in granting extensions. I concede that there may be some incentive to reduce the amount of floor space that project storage consumes should the organization implement paid storage due to both the revenue to the organization and the staggering amount of thankless labor that goes into it.

I’m not sure what the point of dividing rent per ft² per member per month is since storage essentially dedicates whatever square footage to a single member for its duration - typically an entire month based on my experience administering project storage for >1 year. Contrast this to equipment; a table saw might need 50ft² of floor space, but pretty much every member can use it once or more a month.

More useful figures are that we spend about $7.05 per month on rent per member (~$12,000 / 1700), some 17.625% of our gross expenses ($7.05 / ~$40 per member) and that we have ~9.41 ft² per member (16,000 ft² / 1700). As such, passing the full cost of the space dedicated to a member’s storage plus margin is reasonable since the goal of this is to up DMS revenue.

3 Likes
#20

I’d figure that out once I have the available space & dimension information on hand.
Anything prior wouldn’t be fair to you/me or the members.
I’m not against it, there seems to bit of a sticker shock at first glance.
If it does come out to be $3/sq.ft. then that’s what it needs to be.