Sub Metered Electricity.

[seaneldon]

So I'm currently in the planning stages of opening a mid-large facility in NYC. We've got some real estate slimeballs with their feelers out looking for places that were previously built out as recording studios, if only to save an ungodly amount of money that a design/construction job of this size would cost. We've gotten a few leads and hits our way that certainly seem to fit the bill, and requested more information about each of them.

One particular space is absolutely perfect. Very, very similar design to the rooms I'd originally imagined for this studio. Decent ceiling height, the landlord will put in new floated floors for me, and build a couple of walls I'm going to need.

While looking at the lease, the only red flag I saw was "SUBMETERED ELECTRIC". I've been told by quite a few folks that this is a run and hide situation but never got a full explaination. I'll be running a 24 channel analog console, analog tracking and mixdown decks, 32 i/o PTHD, about 60 rack spaces of outboard, HVAC, etc. From what I could imagine, a reasonable amount of juice. And it's all gonna be on 24 hours a day. Is this submetered electric bullshit going to cost me way more than if it was direct with ConEd?

Help. Need to make decision about this space very soon. Thanks in advance.

[jdg]

i dunno much about realistate.. but out here, when we were looking to lease a commerical space, submetered just ment, u are actually just grabbing power from another tenate in the building, and your rate will be metered from there, not directly from main city power supply.

more of a logistical pain, then anything else.

we needed 3phase power, and our electrician just had to add up our power requirments, to make sure we could get enuf power from their box for our needs.
maybe thats what everyone is all about? making sure u have enuf power to share.

[vince @ speck]

Originally Posted by seaneldon

So I'm currently in the planning stages of opening a mid-large facility in NYC. We've got some real estate slimeballs with their feelers out looking for places that were previously built out as recording studios, if only to save an ungodly amount of money that a design/construction job of this size would cost. We've gotten a few leads and hits our way that certainly seem to fit the bill, and requested more information about each of them.

One particular space is absolutely perfect. Very, very similar design to the rooms I'd originally imagined for this studio. Decent ceiling height, the landlord will put in new floated floors for me, and build a couple of walls I'm going to need.

While looking at the lease, the only red flag I saw was "SUBMETERED ELECTRIC". I've been told by quite a few folks that this is a run and hide situation but never got a full explaination. I'll be running a 24 channel analog console, analog tracking and mixdown decks, 32 i/o PTHD, about 60 rack spaces of outboard, HVAC, etc. From what I could imagine, a reasonable amount of juice. And it's all gonna be on 24 hours a day. Is this submetered electric bullshit going to cost me way more than if it was direct with ConEd?

Help. Need to make decision about this space very soon. Thanks in advance.

If the unit is sub-metered, then I assume that you'll be paying that utility directly to the landlard. There must be other tennants in the building. Ask them what they pay per kilowatt-hour of eletricty. Compare that rate to the going K/Hr rate directly from Coned.

Ask the landlord to add a addendum to the lease that puts a maximum rate that is equalivent to the rate charged by ConEd.

[seaneldon]

Originally Posted by vince @ speck

Ask the landlord to add a addendum to the lease that puts a maximum rate that is equalivent to the rate charged by ConEd.

This is along the lines of a solution I was hoping for. I'll give this a shot tomorrow.