A Miami entrepreneur has launched a platform for building operators to list anything they’re not using — shelf space, desks, storage racks, rooms, floors, buildings — for lease or sale in a marketplace.
“New York, D.C., London — they’re swimming in empty retail and secondary office space everywhere,” Steve Taylor, founder and CEO of soCommercial, said in an interview. “What do you do with it? You have a building? The only thing you can do is monetize it. You can’t eat it.”
LoopNet, Crexi and other platforms are well-established platforms for leasing commercial space, but Taylor sees soCommercial playing a different role: giving facility managers a way to capitalize for the short- or long-term on any physical asset they’re not using.
“If you know that, Monday through Friday, the top floor of your restaurant doesn’t get busy until after 5 p.m., you can repurpose that space by having the restaurant offer [it as] coworking space from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. or from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., whatever you want,” said Taylor, who launched the platform this fall. “If you’ve got half of a retail space not doing very well, you could reach out and put it up as collaborative space.”
Empty shelf space in a convenience store, empty storage racks in a warehouse — whatever would otherwise sit empty or underused can be listed, he said, “no matter how small or how big.” The site lists about 150 categories of assets.
The service is free to boost the platform’s value as a place to bring the two sides of a market together, he said. “To have a marketplace, you need both sides of the marketplace, the lookers and the listers,” he said.
As of this week, the site has about four dozen lease and sale listings in Miami, including several offices, fractional warehouse space and a barn that’s being offered as party space.
Once it reaches a critical mass, Taylor said, the site will operate in a way that’s common with software platforms, keeping access free for small users and charging for premium service. Taylor said he wants to help financial services companies, insurers and others that market to building operators reach potential customers.
“What we’re doing falls between the cracks,” said Taylor. “LoopNet doesn’t do it. Crexi doesn’t do it. These businesses are professional, data-driven sites. We’re not doing any of that. Airbnb, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace — that’s kind of the feeling of where we want to be.”
