What to check in a commercial space before you sign the lease

We walked a second-generation restaurant space with a broker last spring, and the marketing flyer called the kitchen “ready to go.” The hood was there. It was sized for a sandwich counter, not for the grill and fryer line the new tenant wanted, and nobody had asked the mechanical question before the letter of intent went out. That question, asked before the lease instead of after, decides whether a fit-out starts on schedule or starts with a change order.

What the ceiling and the walls are hiding

Pull a ceiling tile before you sign anything, or ask the landlord to let us do it. Behind it you find the real story: how much electrical capacity is actually in the panel, how many HVAC tons serve the space and whether they still run, where the plumbing stubs sit relative to where you need a sink or a floor drain. A space that photographs as a blank shell can still be carrying someone else's old wiring and none of the capacity a new kitchen, a medical suite or a server room will need. We read the panel schedule and the mechanical drawings before we read the finish schedule, because those two decide the budget more than paint and flooring ever will.

What the floor and the grid are telling you

Walk the floor with a level, not just your eyes. Concrete that has settled unevenly over the years, an old floor drain in the wrong spot for your layout, or a slab that was never sealed correctly under a prior tenant's flooring can all turn into slab cutting and patching before a single finish goes down. Check the ceiling grid height against the equipment you plan to hang, the millwork you plan to build and the sightlines a restaurant or a showroom depends on. A nine-foot clear ceiling reads very differently once ductwork, sprinkler heads and light fixtures compete for the same six inches.

What the code will let you do with this space

Confirm the occupancy classification the space is permitted under and whether your use matches it. A restaurant inside a former retail shell, a medical suite inside a former office, or a gym inside a former warehouse bay can each trigger a change of use review, and that review sets the accessibility upgrades, the exit count and the restroom fixture count you will be required to build to. Ask what was approved for the last tenant and what changed since. A permit history with unresolved violations or expired approvals becomes your problem the day you take the keys, not the landlord's.

What the building can actually deliver

Ask how deliveries reach your door, whether there is a loading area wide enough for furniture and equipment, and whether the freight elevator, if there is one, can carry what you are bringing in. A space with a beautiful storefront and no practical way to receive a walk-in cooler, a server rack or a run of casework is a space where the fit-out costs more because everything has to move through the front door by hand. We walk this path with the tenant before the lease is signed, not after the truck shows up.

Read the work letter like a contract, because it is one

The landlord's work letter says what they will deliver and what they will not: whether the space arrives with a finished ceiling grid, working HVAC, a stubbed restroom or none of it. Compare that letter against what the flyer implied. The gap between the two is exactly what your fit-out budget has to cover, and it is far easier to negotiate that gap into the lease than to discover it after the ink dries.

One failed check does not disqualify the space

It just means a different budget and a different timeline, and it is better to know that before the lease is signed than during demolition day. Tenants who chase rent and location alone are the ones who discover the undersized panel or the missing floor drain after they already have the keys.

If you are considering a space, send us the floor plan, the lease terms and what you intend to open inside it. We will tour it with you and tell you straight what it takes to get that space open.