How to Check the Tenant Mix of a Shopping Center
To pick a shopping center, check the co-tenants that bring customers. Our tenant checklist lists them under what works in your favor, along with second-generation space, visibility and parking at peak hours.
At Reach Commercial Real Estate, we represent tenants. We help you find locations, compare costs, investigate property questions and negotiate the lease. You bring your business plans. We help you evaluate where those plans fit.
This guide covers the tenant mix of a shopping center in the City of Melbourne: the parking entries in the Land Development Code that name a shopping center, the shared parking rule and the 450-foot alcohol distance rule in the zoning code.
1. Start with the co-tenants in the tenant mix
We use your requirements to identify locations worth investigating. Together, we look at visibility, access, nearby customer destinations, parking, signage and delivery access.
We also discuss what you will compromise on and what your business needs to function.
You do not need every detail settled. We need enough information to search for your business rather than send every available storefront. Reach finds retail space from Titusville to Palm Bay.
2. Ask for the use restrictions and the sign criteria
A listing gives us a starting point. We ask for the information needed to evaluate the property.
For each candidate, we request:
Known use restrictions.
Parking arrangements.
Sign criteria.
CAM or NNN estimates and other lease charges.
CAM means common area maintenance. NNN generally refers to property tax, insurance and maintenance charges. We ask what the proposed lease includes rather than rely on the label.
If a critical answer is missing, we keep the property under investigation. We do not treat an unanswered question as an approval.
3. Read the zoning table for the uses a district allows
Melbourne lists every allowed use by zoning district in Tables 1A and 1B of Appendix B. A use is permitted by right or it needs conditional use approval.
In the C-1 district, restaurants and personal services are permitted by right, retail is permitted, and bars and indoor recreation need conditional use approval. In the C-2 district, restaurants, personal services, retail and indoor recreation are permitted and bars need conditional use approval.
4. Find the parking entries that name a shopping center
Melbourne's Land Development Code, Sec. 9.72, sets parking by use. These entries refer to a shopping center:
Beauty salons and barbershops: two spaces per station. In a shopping center over 50,000 square feet, additional parking above retail requirements is not required for them, provided the facility does not occupy over ten percent of the center's gross leasable floor area.
Theaters in a shopping center or professional plaza of 50,000 square feet or greater of gross retail or professional area: one space per six seats at 50,000 to 79,999 square feet, one per seven seats at 80,000 to 99,999, and one per eight seats at 100,000 and over.
5. Check shared parking when the neighbors keep different hours
When a parking lot serves two or more uses and the operating hours of the uses do not overlap, the total required number of parking spaces may be reduced (Sec. 9.73(a)(3)). The number can't fall below the largest number of spaces required plus one-half of the required spaces for each additional use.
With one use at 20 spaces and the other at 10, that's a floor of 25 spaces instead of 30.
6. Check the alcohol neighbors within 450 feet
Melbourne's zoning code requires a conditional use for the sale or service of alcoholic beverages for consumption on premises at these restricted establishments (Appendix B, Art. VI, Sec. 2(Q)(1)):
Private clubs and lodges.
Bars, micro-breweries, micro-distilleries and other drinking establishments, unless qualified as a restaurant or as accessory to a hotel or motel of 100 or more guest rooms.
Recreational establishments and amusement centers, including golf courses, marinas, tennis clubs and racquetball complexes, unless qualified as a restaurant.
The code allows no sale or service of alcoholic beverages for consumption on premises at a restricted establishment within 450 feet of an existing house of worship, an existing school or another existing restricted establishment. Properties in the city's Community Redevelopment Districts are exempt from that distance rule.
We help you organize the property information and questions for the office responsible for the address. We want to know which approvals apply before you commit.
7. Put the use clause in the lease discussion
Once you select a property, we negotiate the business terms. We focus on permitted use. On our lease checklist, you can ask for exclusive use and a use clause, along with term and renewal options, landlord work versus tenant work, TI allowance, free rent during buildout, CAM caps, personal guaranty, assignment and a permit contingency.
Extra items to check
Your sign. For each candidate, we request the sign criteria. Signage is on the list of work that requires a permit in Melbourne's Building Section FAQ.
Off-site parking. Outside Melbourne's CB-OZ overlay, no more than 50 percent of required parking can be off-site, and those spaces must be within 500 feet under a recorded binding lot agreement (Sec. 9.75).
Courtesy inspection. Brevard County Fire Rescue's Office of Fire Prevention offers free courtesy inspections for businesses with fire and life safety questions about a potential new location.
Insurance requirements. Keep track of them with your possession dates and rent commencement.
Start your search with Reach
You do not need to find the property before calling us. Helping you find and evaluate the property is part of our work.
Bring your requirements, budget, preferred area and target opening date. For each candidate, we request known use restrictions, parking arrangements and sign criteria. We will use those details to build your search, compare locations and negotiate the lease. In most deals the landlord pays our fee.
Already found a space? Send me the address and listing. We will start with the property questions and deal terms you need to investigate.
Call 321-514-0876.
Related: the leasing guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is the 450-foot distance measured?
Melbourne's zoning code measures it by following the shortest route of ordinary pedestrian travel along the public thoroughfare from the main entrance of the restricted establishment to the main entrance of the house of worship, school or other restricted establishment.
Does a restaurant count as a restricted establishment?
Bars, micro-breweries, micro-distilleries and other drinking establishments, and recreational establishments and amusement centers, are restricted establishments unless they qualify as a restaurant. Melbourne's zoning code defines a restaurant as an establishment where food is prepared on the premises and served continuously during operating hours, with a fully equipped kitchen in operating condition. The sale of food and non-alcoholic beverages has to make up at least 51 percent of its gross revenue.
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Written by Cassandra Hartford, founder and CEO of Reach Commercial Real Estate. She has worked in Brevard County commercial real estate for 17 years, representing buyers, sellers, landlords, and tenants across Florida's Space Coast.
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