Daydreaming of the ultimate home

[john70t]

The nearby town of Ypsilanti is selling off some schools.
There are some crack-den bargains in that city, but $400K-600 buys a nice single family here in Ann Arbor so the prices are not unreasonable for the general area.
Website: Property Overview

But what does one possibly do with a 30K sq industrial building plus 10 acres?
Oh boy.

Building
Residence with 5-6 rooms of course. I'd need only two for myself.
Maybe a personal use side, and a side for guests or rental/AirB&B income.
LAN party room and possible small office rental.
Garage space galore. Or several for possible rental.
Workshop (wood/metal) for possible rental.
Storage and possible rental.
Indoor lap swimming pool. Naturally.
Greenhouse room to be able to grow crops year round. Start cutting on them skylights boy!

Grounds
Plant evergreen hedge trees around entire perimeter such as blue spruce.
Grade perimeter of foundation to contain any 100 yr storm water flooding.
Dig out ponds to grow tilapia or catfish or frogs.
Plant fruit trees, blueberries, and hardwoods for long-term investment.
Garden area for summertime.
All grass is replaced by wildflowers and native plants. Get a federal variance permit and forget those neighbors who will complain about "unkept premises"
Create privacy embankments and private paths to a fire pit and seating area.
I'll need an archery range of course.
Maybe a winding perimeter path with jumps and bowls for mountain biking or electric motocross.
Leave sufficient parking for myself, guests, and a few slots for RV's and trailers. The remaining lot concrete can make walls and boundaries.
A couple banks of solar panels and a large insulated battery shed for electric heat/cooling.
House is net positive in food and energy production and off the grid. Downtown.

And then I wake up.....

[Scott R]

I would think one would start with a large asbestos abatement.

[HardDrive]

Originally Posted by Scott R

I would think one would start with a large asbestos abatement.

Yup. Run Forest, run. Big boiler heating systems with asbestos wrapped pipe, asbestos ceiling tiles, flooring tiles.....C.H.U.D.s....the problems are many.

[vash]

a compound that huge would be a ***** to vacuum.

my dream home starts with an abandoned firehouse.

the garage would be fantastic!! half of it: i'd run a ping pong tournament of semi okay players..

[HHI944]

Originally Posted by vash

a compound that huge would be a ***** to vacuum.

my dream home starts with an abandoned firehouse.

the garage would be fantastic!! half of it: i'd run a ping pong tournament of semi okay players..

So. You want to be sniper?

[Ayles]

Originally Posted by vash

a compound that huge would be a ***** to vacuum.

my dream home starts with an abandoned firehouse.

the garage would be fantastic!! half of it: i'd run a ping pong tournament of semi okay players..

The Seattle fd has sold a couple surplus firehouses lately. Pretty sweet buildings/garages but probably need a ton of work to be comfortable.
Former Seattle Fire Station 20 for sale - seattlepi.com

[rwest]

Can only imagine the property taxes on that. I bet $5,000 to ten a month? Cool ideas though.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Indoor paintball field?

Agree with the above. Heating and remediation costs would kill you. Abatement of ACM (asbestos containing materials), lead, PCBs... You probably don't want to get anywhere near it.

I recently did a project for a client to examine demolition options for an abandoned 800,000 sq. ft. building (former psych. hospital). In okay shape, good bones / structure, etc. Demo estimate came in at over a $23M TPC, mostly due to abatement. $23 MILLION. For demo alone. Granted this is a huge building but it should give you some sense of how costly this stuff can get. It's a shame too because a lot of these older buildings are pretty nice and built strong - certainly better than the junk today, but the abatement regulations absolutely drive costs through the roof and make it impractical to do much of anything with them (including demolish) so a lot of them just sit and rot, creating numerous other problems (squatters, blight, etc.)

The heating costs would be utterly brutal. My place is 3,200 sq. ft. on two floors and it's a struggle every year - and I run very lean / efficient and have done a pretty decent job insulating, identifying cold air infiltration points, pellet / renewable fuel, smart thermostats, yada-yada. I can't imagine how it would be to pay for tens of thousands of dollars of natural gas or bunker oil a year (if you can even legally run the heating plant - if it's steam, good luck - you might need a steam plant operator's license ($$$) which is another reason people / institutions have ditched those systems and sometimes the entire buildings just to get rid of paying that overhead (yes, I've personally seen replacement of an entire boiler plant just so a facility could eliminate two steam operator positions - they cost that much).

[onewhippedpuppy]

My dream house is one that is paid for.

[Scuba Steve]

I'll play...

The second one (school / remodeled in 2008) would be the one I'd pick because I assume abatement would have been done, the area it's in looks best and it seems like the most normal building. 54K would be a LOT of space to deal with...

It could probably be turned into a mixed use building with the commercial area maybe being something like a coffee shop or small restaurant since there's a park nearby and a larger street about a block away. That would be the art/dining/kitchen/music classroom area. The parking lot and basketball court area would probably provide enough parking to keep the city happy.

Now it's time to start defining an owner's living space. Take CL 140 and 142 and turn them into a huge garage with lifts and all that. Take the gymnasium and adjacent areas to the left down, stopping at the media center area, to provide physical separation between the commercial area and where someone lives. Then build a new exterior wall matching the style of the one facing the street however many feet into where those rooms used to be. That defines the owner's residence, easily 10K+ sq ft by the time old partition walls come down and new ones go up.

The classroom areas up from the office could be partitioned off into two additional large areas (3,000 sq ft? each?), basically turning it into a large triplex that would hopefully offset taxes on the place or bring in some extra income. I'd try and tie into the 1950s look of the building as much as possible instead of fighting it. The brickwork seems pretty nice and the large windows lend themselves to nice, open living space.

[motion]

If I was single, I'd live in a very cool, large airplane hanger. Up in the loft. I wouldn't need a shower, either.

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by motion

I wouldn't need a shower, either.

We've been meaning to talk to you about that...




If it was only me, I'd live on sailboat. One large enough to have a full head w/ shower.

[recycled sixtie]

Originally Posted by Ayles

The Seattle fd has sold a couple surplus firehouses lately. Pretty sweet buildings/garages but probably need a ton of work to be comfortable.
Former Seattle Fire Station 20 for sale - seattlepi.com

If I had a fire station and I was single the pole could be used for strippers.....

[vash]

Originally Posted by HHI944

So. You want to be sniper?

dont we all?

[porsche4life]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

My dream house is one that is paid for.

Yup. Once the kids are it of the house, we are selling the big house, and moving to the mountains. 600sqft max tiny house with enough land for a shop and that's it. Pay cash for everything we own, and live life easy. Work a few days a week, fish the rest!


That compound sounds cool, but costly to build and maintain. I'll live in my paid for shipping containers.

[quicksix]

10 acres and a yurt

[HHI944]

Originally Posted by motion

If I was single, I'd live in a very cool, large airplane hanger. Up in the loft. I wouldn't need a shower, either.

I am single, but the local airports won't allow you to live in the hangars.....I've asked.....

Originally Posted by vash

dont we all?

Fair enough

[vash]

my real answer:

i just want to live somewhere that i cannot see, hear, smell, my neighbors. i want an outdoor shower. a fire pit. a back yard pizza oven. a big garden. and a large stand alone building that is my garage..that i proudly deemed "man land". my garage will have a walk in wine storage, a root cellar and a car lift..workbench for all things guns and archery..and an office upstairs to smoke cigars. maybe a guest room i can squirrel the inlaws in.

the house will have a single attached garage that i put my wifes TESLA in..and it will be a small 3 bedroom with 2 master baths. bad ass kitchen with an entire glass wall that i can slide open and convert my kitchen to an outdoor living space.

done..dream sequence ending now..

[vash]

.....all that ^^^ will be on 15 acres that nestles up to wild opened national forest land on one side.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by john70t

But what does one possibly do with a 30K sq industrial building plus 10 acres?
Oh boy.

FYI: very near there about a decade ago when that area was run down, a guy bought a similar property and reused it as collector car storage.

He's made some coin on it, but maybe would not appreciate the competition.

A full sprinkler system was required by the insurance company.

Lots of uses if you have a plan and some deep pockets.

Nice find.

Perhaps more affordable is a small 1960's church near Farmington, some land and woods with it. No river but a nice upscale residential area across the street.