42 North Road

[Ian Henderson]

There has been mention of 42 North Road as a possible location for the next Hackspace

I currently rent an office at 39A North Road which is adjacent to 42 so I've taken a few photographs. The post code is N7 9DP and the site is next door to Caledonian Road Underground Station on the Picaddilly line (Zone 2)

Number 42 was formerly used as a commercial garage (think QuickFit or similar), it's a huge space - about 15,000 square feet and not in good condition. Access is very easy and parking is reasonable with pay and display bays outside the building between 9:30 and 4:30 Monday to Friday. Outside these hours parking is free 

I think it's a great space but I'm not sure it would be suitable as the next Hackspace without a lot of work

Here are a few photographs:

[Simon Howes]

Its pretty far from the current space though...

[Adrian Godwin]

It's got generally better communications though - underground, overground, King's Cross, and leaves the A1 a little north of the worst congestion. Probably no help to drivers from any other direction but may not be worse.

[Chris Lowis]

> Its pretty far from the current space though...

About 2.2 miles as the crow flies, and it does have better transport
connections as Adrian points out.

I think it looks like a great space with "potential" as I'm sure an
estate agent would describe it.

Chris

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

OMGOMGOMG vehicle lift! :3

Will say it'll be f**king cold in winter though. Offices don't look
huge, so probably need something portacabin-esque arrangement in there
to replicate an "indoor" environment like the current main room.

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[Russ Garrett]

On 10 October 2012 10:51, Ian Henderson <i...@advancedforensics.com> wrote:
> I think it's a great space but I'm not sure it would be suitable as the
> next Hackspace without a lot of work
>
> Here are a few photographs:

Thanks!

It does look like an awesome space but I agree it's almost certainly
out of our budget to even start refurbishing unless we can drum up at
least an extra £50k.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Adrian Godwin]

Maybe that's the sort of thing that would qualify for a grant.

[Benjamin Blundell]

50k eh? Time for a fundraiser! :D

B

[Aden]

Just build a big hexayurt or geodesic dome inside it!

[930913]

>It's got generally better communications though<

It doesn't have Borris bikes though. The convenience for me being able to cycle in on a whim with ease, without paying transport, is half the reason I come to the space.

[Adrian Godwin]

Interesting. I didn't realise they stopped so close to King's Cross.

Should we add that to the search requirements ?

-adrian

[Big Will]

It looks like it could be an awesome hackspace venue, and fund-raising events isn't beyond the 400+ highly intelligent members of the hackspace.

I'm sure we could run 'prototyping hackathon weekends' where businesses can come and spend money to hire the members to build prototypes quickly, but pay top dollar for the work.  This could work for hardware, electronics or software.

Also, http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?r.l1=1073858790&r.l2=1084705429&r.s=tl&topicId=1073866776  Government help might be possible,

[Ian Henderson]

mmm - you're getting me thinking...

North Road has quite a history of hackspace activity...

In 2008 United House ( the big building next to No. 42) hosted "H3: Beginners Arduino Workshop

In 2009 United House  was the location of "Makers and Hackers London"

3dprintshow. Ltd - the organisers of http://3dprintshow.com which is running next week are based in Omnibus House - next door to United House

Originally the industrial buildings which comprise 42 North Road, Omnibus and United house were the London General Omnibus Company main workshops where most of London's buses were built in the late 19th century

[Martin Dittus]

Plus the King's Cross area is undergoing a period of regeneration. In a few years it'll be hard to find property there at that price.

And: with the new CSN campus so close it would be a great opportunity to invite more artistic projects to our current specialty of engineering/crafts-driven projects. (Pls let's not have a discussion on the relative merits of having more art students around, and simply agree that any specialty we can add to our roaster is an improvement.)

m.

On 10 Oct 2012, at 19:34, Ian Henderson wrote:

> mmm - you're getting me thinking...
>
> North Road has quite a history of hackspace activity...
>
> In 2008 United House ( the big building next to No. 42) hosted "H3: Beginners Arduino Workshop
>
> In 2009 United House was the location of "Makers and Hackers London"
>
> 3dprintshow. Ltd - the organisers of http://3dprintshow.com which is running next week are based in Omnibus House - next door to United House
>
> Originally the industrial buildings which comprise 42 North Road, Omnibus and United house were the London General Omnibus Company main workshops where most of London's buses were built in the late 19th century
>
>
>
>

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

�50k is the same as every member paying an additional �8 a month.

[Russ Garrett]

On 10 October 2012 22:42, Peter "Sci" Turpin <s...@sci-fi-fox.com> wrote:
> £50k is the same as every member paying an additional £8 a month.

...for a year, yes. But we'd need it immediately, to make this space
happen. In fact, we will have the additional problem that we'd need to
rent our existing space for a certain period to overlap with it.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Big Will]

I was wondering if we could put on an event, like a seminar or discussion where some of us give talks about our areas of expertise, over a weekend to raise some of the required capital.

We have just has Sam give cryptoparty, so we have some experience at this between us.

Would there be the interest and support from members to make something possible?

500 Londoners paying £100 for a weekend of talks, would (minus costs) give us the shot in the arm needed.

[Dario]

That much space might be enough to start a HackerHamlet if not a full-blown HackerT0wn! ;-)
See http://www.indiegogo.com/hackert0wn for inspiration and day-dreaming...

Cheers
Dario

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

Okay, just to be sure here, the rent on the place is 50k more than
currently budgeted or it'd cost that much to get the place usable?

Trying to brainstorm additional funding avenues and the additional space
provided might be good for them. Example; turning down server donations
for resale. If we could dump a secure cabin in there could use it as
storage for such things. Or sub-letting. But that is down-the-line
funding not up front.

Bigger space would really need extra cash generating channels.

[Russ Garrett]

On 11 October 2012 14:39, Peter "Sci" Turpin <s...@sci-fi-fox.com> wrote:
> Okay, just to be sure here, the rent on the place is 50k more than currently
> budgeted or it'd cost that much to get the place usable?

I don't actually know what the rent for it is. I contacted the estate
agents a while back and they said "We are not quoting a rent as such,
which will depend on the user and scope of any works to the
building.", which is suitably cryptic. It could be well out of our
price range.

The £50k is my (potentially optimistic) estimate of the up-front costs
we'd need to make at least some of the building usable as a space.
This doesn't include the overlap in rents while we do so.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Nigel Worsley]

> Okay, just to be sure here, the rent on the place is 50k more than currently budgeted or it'd cost that much to get the place
> usable?

£50k to make it usable. A lot of this would be to create a building within a building so
that desks can be somewhere quiet and capable of being heated properly. Workshop
users will have to get used to the cold in winter, the heating will do little more than
prevent the pipes freezing.

Nigle

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

Looking at the building on google maps and judging from the photos, it
looks like the building may have a dividing wall down the centre, and
the far end of the wedge may be in a poorer state. If so, perhaps we
could rent only half the property or sub-let the other half?

I also note the office space (up and down) comes to 908sq/ft per floor,
so ~1800sq/ft. Considering the entire current hackspace is 2600, that
doesn't sound bad. Building a ceiling-height wall around the stairway
mezzanine area would increase it for little cost. But basically,
presuming the office space is currently okay, all the current "clean"
operations of the space should fit within it.

The wet patches on the floor seem to correlate to the troughs of the
roof, so may be blocked guttering or broken windows. Of course that'd
need checking. I do have a 16ft scaffolding tower in the family though,
so repairs/replacements are within our capability. Likewise building
cheap stud-partition walls. Hell, we could do it as a DIY class.

I'd suspect 50k is the absolute upper limit of potential repairs. Andy's
willing to come along on a viewing if there is one, since he knows how
to get things fixed up at reduced cost.

But you're right, that's very cryptic. It's almost as if they don't want
to rent it, maybe considering selling it to developers? How long's it
been on the market with them? If it's been a while, then they may be
holding it just waiting for land prices to be right to sell.

[Billy]

If they won't give you more than a 2-year lease, then they will
probably be planning on developing.

Standard terms with commercial leases, is with any lease longer than
two years, the tenant has the automatic right of renewal, for a new
lease of the same length of time as the original lease. Still got to
pay for the lease though. If you're renting out property, and you're
planning on developing the building, a standard tactic, is to only
offer a tenancy of two years, less 1 day. Keeps inside the limits.

Might be worth checking with Islington Council. They stopped letting
people do commercial-to-residential zoning conversions. There were too
many pubs being converted by the pub chains. Turning them into flats
was more profitable than running them as a going concern.

If that planning restriction is still in place, then, the odds of a
residential developement is low-to-non-existent.

Gives us a little more leverage in negotiating a better deal, as they
won't be able to do anything else with it, and the commercial property
market is donald at the moment.

[Russ Garrett]

Well, I just re-read the email I got from the agents and it turns out
I missed the bit where he said it's for long-term let only (in
commercial property parlance that's 10 years plus with no break
clause). I don't think that it would be prudent for us to go for a
long term let, especially with all the other risks on that property. I
can try and ask about a break clause but I get the impression that's
not going to be possible.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Nigel Worsley]

> I also note the office space (up and down) comes to 908sq/ft per floor,

For business rates purposes it has 87.5 sq m, which is 942 sq ft, no mention
of two floors.

Unit 24 is listed as 106.88 sq m which is 1150 sq ft (the measurements
used for ratable value ignore things like loos, cupboards, boiler rooms
etc.) so it is only 208 sq ft smaller - pretty much the size of the lobby.

> Building a ceiling-height wall around the stairway
> mezzanine area would increase it for little cost.

Unless that is already classed as office space and included in the 900 ish sq ft
figure. I doubt that it is, except maybe for the estate agent's figures.

> presuming the office space is currently okay, all the current "clean"
> operations of the space should fit within it.

I suspect it is a bit of a mess, but shouldn't cost much to get it up to a
usable standard.

> But you're right, that's very cryptic. It's almost as if they don't want
> to rent it, maybe considering selling it to developers?

That was my thought too.

> How long's it been on the market with them?

Quite a while, the PDF flyer was created in November 2010

That interior photo only shows about half of the building, it would be nice
to see the rest of it.

The issue of creating enough space that can be kept warm enough during
winter wouldn't be all that urgent if we moved in at the end of spring, we
would have up to 6 months to get something built before it gets too cold.

Nigle

[Russ Garrett]

On 11 October 2012 16:21, Nigel Worsley <nig...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> But you're right, that's very cryptic. It's almost as if they don't want
>> to rent it, maybe considering selling it to developers?
>
> That was my thought too.

The email I got from the developers was clear that the owner doesn't
want to sell the freehold.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Ian Henderson]

The owner is the Corporation of London. They have a general policy of not selling freehold

I know Busworks, the owners of 39-41 North Road put an offer in on No. 42 which was rejected.

The site has been empty for at least 18 months

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

Yup, that's the same PDF I saw.

I also presume these two floors are the area to the right-rear of the
first photo in this thread. This would place them against the wall
shared by the residential property next door.

On 11/10/2012 16:41, Big Will wrote:

>
> On Thursday, 11 October 2012 16:22:05 UTC+1, Nigel Worsley wrote:
>
> > I also note the office space (up and down) comes to 908sq/ft per
> floor,
>
> For business rates purposes it has 87.5 sq m, which is 942 sq ft, no
> mention
> of two floors.
>
> Unit 24 is listed as 106.88 sq m which is 1150 sq ft (the measurements
> used for ratable value ignore things like loos, cupboards, boiler rooms
> etc.) so it is only 208 sq ft smaller - pretty much the size of the
> lobby.
>
>

> http://www.thompsonyates.co.uk/property/42-north-road The PDF mentions
> two office levels, which is the 908sq/ft x 2 comes from.
> And for everyone else - here is the street view location
> *http://tinyurl.com/42northrd *
> *
> *
> *
> *

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

No wonder it's been empty so long, a ten-year unbreakable lease in this
economic climate sounds like a hard sell for even large businesses.

I certainly agree a long-term let like that is out of the question. So
it's a write-off unless different terms could be agreed, such as the
maintenance one suggested. But a rolling lease would be too impermanent
for the space if we could be kicked out any time for a bigger party.

Sadly I doubt a special lease will have much bargaining power. A
concrete floor isn't going to decay quickly no matter how much the roof
leaks, so they won't need to be in a hurry. And I guess for a large
letting firm gambling lost revenue in the short term is worth the peace
of mind of a potential long-term lease later on? The thing's probably a
sunk cost for them.

Still, maybe worth checking their own definition of long-term let?

[Big Will]

Perhaps I am an optimist, but I think it is a surprise benefit that it belongs to the corporation of London.

It allows us the opportunity to get the attention of the Lord Mayor (and Boris/TechCity Investment Organisation) and see if he is interested in helping to support the hackspace organization,  If publically supporting the UK's biggest amateur technology research and building facility in London is in their plan for London, we may be in good shape.

For instance, I would say that the hackspace 'raises the aspirations of young people' by helping to share and learn.
http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/business/supporting-local-communities/contributing-to-economic-regeneration/raising-the-aspirations-of-young-people/Pages/default.aspx

[Martin Dittus]

If we end up being interested in such an option we already have a few good contacts that could help us navigate that territory. (That's one social benefit of being so close to the local startup scene.)

m.

[Ian Henderson]

42NR was broken into last night and some travellers have set up camp....

I left at about 9 pm and Police were attending

The may put the owners under pressure to agree to a let?

[Big Will]

Hi Ian,

Could you give us an update on this situation?

Hi Martin,

As you explain you have some good contacts which could help broker an agreement with the Corporation of London, would you be able to interface with them and see what help they would be prepared to give to help negotiate both a reasonable length lease (e.g. not for a very very long time), a repair job to the site prior to us arriving and a rent which reflects that we are a positive influence on the surrounding tech community.

[Francis Davey]

Le jeudi 11 octobre 2012 16:01:36 UTC+1, Billy a écrit :

If they won't give you more than a 2-year lease, then they will
probably be planning on developing.

Standard terms with commercial leases, is with any lease longer than
two years, the tenant has the automatic right of renewal, for a new
lease of the same length of time as the original lease. Still got to
pay for the lease though. If you're renting out property, and you're
planning on developing the building, a standard tactic, is to only
offer a tenancy of two years, less 1 day. Keeps inside the limits.

Hmmmm, this sounds to me like something communicated that was only half-understood.

As a general rule any commercial lease over 6 months will be subject to part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, which gives reasonable security of tenure to the business tenant, subject to a statutory scheme of lease renewal. It is possible - and in some sectors routine - to contract out of that security. Doing so can be technically complicated and there have been times when a significant portion of my revenue stream was dealing with failures of parties to get it right.

There's no magic "two year" boundary in the law of commercial leases in England that I am aware of - and I would expect to be aware of such a thing.

Francis

[Billy]

Thanks for the info.

That sounds a little more sensible. Initial story I got from a
conversation with a club-owner who also owned another building in
Soho. He was complaining about the rental market, and the hassles with
trying to re-develope part of the building. The evening ended with us
consuming a lot of malt whiskey, so I may have got the wrong end of
the stick...

[Francis Davey]

Le mardi 23 octobre 2012 09:10:59 UTC+1, Billy a écrit :

Thanks for the info.

That sounds a little more sensible. Initial story I got from a
conversation with a club-owner who also owned another building in
Soho. He was complaining about the rental market, and the hassles with
trying to re-develope part of the building. The evening ended with us
consuming a lot of malt whiskey, so I may have got the wrong end of
the stick...

Empirical evidence suggests that accurate advice and consumption of large quantities of alcohol are not easily compatible.

Francis 

[Ian Henderson]

This is an update as requested:

42 North Road is still occupied by squatters. They have moved in a large caravan and seem to be living there complete with dogs and various unwashed friends

Both the landlord and the Police have been notified, but I haven't seen any eviction activity so far. The squatters broke the lock on one of the doors to gain access and then use a yale type lock for daily access

 I have spoken to someone who made a commercial bid for the site. They told me:

The landlord wants a long lease (5 to 10 years) with the new tennant taking on responsibility for refurbishment costs estimated at £1 million. Estimated rent is £11 per sq ft

This works out at approximately £165,000 per annum

I have spoken to a chartered surveyor who has inspected the property. He thinks the landlord has totally unrealistic expectations and no one is likely to pay or commit to what is being asked. This may explain why it has been unoccupied for 18 months or so.

I'm just wondering if the present situation could be an opportunity for Hackspace to offer to take over the premises for a few years at a heavily discounted rent until the rental market improves. Occupancy by Hackspace would have security benefits and would be producing some rental income for the landlord. It could be a win-win if the landlord is prepared to be sensible...

Thoughts?

  

On Wednesday, 10 October 2012 10:51:40 UTC+1, Ian Henderson wrote:

There has been mention of 42 North Road as a possible location for the next Hackspace

I currently rent an office at 39A North Road which is adjacent to 42 so I've taken a few photographs. The post code is N7 9DP and the site is next door to Caledonian Road Underground Station on the Picaddilly line (Zone 2)

Number 42 was formerly used as a commercial garage (think QuickFit or similar), it's a huge space - about 15,000 square feet and not in good condition. Access is very easy and parking is reasonable with pay and display bays outside the building between 9:30 and 4:30 Monday to Friday. Outside these hours parking is free 

I think it's a great space but I'm not sure it would be suitable as the next Hackspace without a lot of work

Here are a few photographs:

[Russ Garrett]

On 23 October 2012 12:38, Ian Henderson <i...@advancedforensics.com> wrote:
> The landlord wants a long lease (5 to 10 years) with the new tennant taking on responsibility for refurbishment costs estimated at £1 million. Estimated rent is £11 per sq ft
>
> This works out at approximately £165,000 per annum

£11 is a pretty ridiculous sum for that place, but even at half this
price it's realistically going to be out of our budget. When you add
on refurbishment costs, I maintain that we'd be biting off more than
we can chew.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Johnathan Phan]

What is happening to the current hacker space?

Are we going to lose it?

I have had a plan to build a semi hacker space in East London. "isle of dog" from an abandoned and disused church.

this was the plan - http://www.cofsm.co.uk/plan/

Regards

John

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

Wow, this puts me firmly in the camp for rejecting this place. The last
thing this landlord sounds like is sensible. Before they sounded maybe
over-optimistic, but now they just sound stuck in a fantasy world. Avoid.

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[Sam Kelly]

Another "avoid". Apart from anything else, I'd prefer us not to be
involved with evicting squatters, even if this place were a sensible
price. (Right now, "free if you refurbish it" is sounding like a
sensible price.)

--
Sam Kelly, http://www.eithin.co.uk/

That's it. We're not messing around anymore, we're buying a bigger
dictionary. - Tibor Fischer, The Thought Gang.