Would you have interest in a local "hobby garage"?
I am looking at creating a new business for a garage that I have trying to sell. My wife thinks this is a crazy idea, but I think there is a market for it.
If any of you are ex-military, you might remember the military carft shops. They had a shop with about a dozen garage bays, a few lifts, a prep and paint booth, a tool crib and you could rent time in the gargage and tools. The costs were incredibly cheap and the shop was well used. I learned to work on cars in one of these and have always thought that it might make a good business in the civilian world.
The shop would be a local venture. The hobbiest would have to be a member of that club and the membership would have to have some annual fee. A bit like a country club membership but for fewer dollars. When you wanted to use the garage bays, you would pay by the day or week. There would be some parking lot space for rent, a couple of garage lifts, a spray booth, a garage bay with a pressure cleaner, a sand blasting booth and a tool crib. Maybe a hot rod shop would rent some space and have parts on site as well.
The site that I won would accomodate about 12 bays and costs me about $4K a month in mortgage payments. There would have to be a crew to supervise the equipment and offer safety training, so there would be at least 3 employees. When I do the math it looks like the club would cost about $240 a year for membership which could be billed at $10 per month. The garage space would be about $30 per day and the spray booth about $50 per half day.
If you were a member, you would have a place to met, a local set of opinions for getting something fixed, and instead of going to the bar, you would have a place to hang out. Plus there would be formal classes on how to do things that you need to know how to do. This would be an 8am to 10pm kind of shop and would be open 7 days plus most holidays.
So here is the question; If this existed in your area would you use it. If we do this, it will be in Austin, Texas.