You Better Sit Down...

I have been waiting ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DAYS to write this blog post.  That is approximately 2,424 hours and an entire holiday season.  That is an entire cycle of shorts and flip-flops to jeans and Uggs.  That is approximately 300 emails and 526 blog mentions of Silent Stan. And now...

Sit down for this one...

We have a lease agreement.

Just let it sink for a moment.

OOHHHHEEEMMMMMGEEEEEEE.  Just when we all thought it might NEVER happen.  Just when I was making a short list of other options.  Just when I was ready to call all Kroenke Group tenants and ask them how long their lease negotiations took and find some sort of average to prove some sort of point.  Just when I was considering completing my very own Elks application.

And finally.

Here is how it went down - we sent our best and final offer to Silent Stan on Monday.  I checked my email about every 4.6 seconds on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Today, we got the counteroffer back from Silent Stan.  In short, we agreed to the space as-is and Stan agreed to $18,000 in tenant improvements.  That sounds like a lot, but remember that we are talking about a 1,000 square foot rectangle that has had zero improvements so in all likelihood, we will have to give up some of the fancier things unless we want to do them ourselves.  And in case you are curious, yes, yes I have already Googled "how to build a concrete countertop" and "how to stain concrete floors."

We are pretty happy.  Would we like more cash?  Sure.  Are we happy with what we got? Absolutely. We are pretty creative and we aren't afraid of painting or DIY projects, so we definitely will be putting some sweat equity into the deal.  We are going to circle back to Contractor Steve and see how the numbers can be adjusted so that we shave off some from his original estimate of $19,216.

We are asking to sign the lease on Monday and then for all of Silent Stan's "stuff" in the space to be out by next Friday.  As a refresher, here is how the space sits now:

Huh.  Looks sort of different now that this is all much more real.  Different exciting.  And different overwhelming.

Next step - ordering something to put in the window of the new location.  I think I'll request a banner along the lines of "Finally finally finally finally finally finally coming soon, Peggy Jean's Pies"