After more than a year of searching, we’ve finally found a great building, large enough to accommodate our entire operation under one roof. At nearly 14,000 sqft, it is the space we’ve dreamed of for more than 10 years. The space is perfect EXCEPT it’s next to the transitional housing facility, city sanctioned tent city, the soup kitchen, and the food bank. We’re an auction house and our customers would come to the facility to drop of their consignment items and to pick up their winning bids.
I’ve thought about electronic access with fencing to the street with gates, but will that be enough to deter them? Am I making a horrible decision with my life savings?
I personally wouldn’t do this.
If you do, factor in costs for security, fence/property repairs, vandalism, etc.
The last company I was employed with was on a shared property with a consignment store (like a big thrift store). It was also near a homeless camp/tent city type area, and the vandalism was insane. The homeless would come over with wire/bolt cutters at night, cut through the chain link fence on an almost nightly basis. They’d steal property, the homeless (or just generic criminals) once brought over a plasma cutter and cut through a steel shipping container door. They would steal propane tanks (the entire cage of like 16 tanks), others would graffiti the building and shipping containers. They hired night security, once the security was assaulted by like 6+ homeless/criminals and nearly killed. Some of the other security were just bad, asleep on the job, or the homeless/criminals would come and they’d just watch them from inside the car and call 911, but usually too late to matter, apprehension weren’t made.
No matter how you slice it, it’s a risk. Maybe your area isn’t as bad, maybe the homeless/criminals are better behaved, or the area is better policed, but just factor in the potential for damage and theft and vandalism. Plus customers will be more nervous about going into a “bad area” especially if hauling expensive goods, or large amounts of cash.