So over a month ago I made a post saying that I would be getting my own arcade started that next week and that along with it I would be making regular updates but you may have noticed that I haven’t been doing that and for good reason – it hasn’t happened yet. When I made the original post I was under the impression that I would be signing the lease to my location very shortly because Sears, the landlord of the site, told my realtor to expect it to happen within 5 days (that was on about the 15th of last month). So I waited for about five days and nothing happened. I kept waiting and nothing happened. The person apparently in charge for submitting the work to the lawyers so a lease could be created hadn’t even bothered to send it to them yet and I was given no reason why, until today. Today my own realtor was able to move up somewhere in the Sears chain and get some straight answers for a change and apparently the reason why I’m still waiting is because some other business is interested in the same location and they have been given priority because they are an established business and have a lot more capital than I do. It doesn’t matter that I submitted a letter of intent back in November and because Sears’ realtor drug his feet on it because he wanted a larger cut.
So my frustration has been multiplied many times over as I have had to wait needlessly on two people who in my opinion have lacked total professionalism and competence. I have only been waiting on this site as no other properties have appeared during this time that would work out for what I need (in terms of price, space, location, and more) but now I will have to bend a bit more on what I would like as I need to open before the summer break hits.
I guess the lesson for those of you who want to open your own arcades is have a lot of capital backing you either through a large bank account, line of credit, investors, property, etc. Of course I can’t vouch for Sears either but I’m nice enough to give them the benefit of the doubt as it may have just been the combination of the realtor they picked for this particular property combined with the person in charge of the property with Sears themselves. I still don’t understand why both of them have been so secretive about their intentions and why neither has had the courage to tell us what it is that needs to be resolved to move forward.
So tomorrow I’ll be exploring the city looking for any properties that don’t show up on the online searches for whatever reasons, as will my own personal realtor (who has been great and is different from the realtor Sears has in charge of the property I’ve been trying to get into).
