By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Grand Rapids-based Waters Corporation recently announced the launch of a new commercial leasing enterprise, Waters Tenant Representation, LLC. The focus of the new business is to represent tenants only in commercial leasing transactions, helping business owners find office, retail and light industrial space.
“We don’t take any listings from building owners,” says Chris Atwater, president of the new venture. “If a building owner has a vacancy and needs help leasing it, I refer them to someone else. Otherwise it’s very difficult to separate who you’re working for, the owner or the tenant, and it removes any motivation on my part to not find what’s best for the tenant.”
Atwater says that representing tenants only allows him to look at all available properties for his clients.
“There could be 100 to 150 properties that meet a tenant’s requirements,” Atwater notes. “I sit down with a client to understand their needs and narrow down the properties to about 15. The client wouldn’t have looked at 150 properties and the listings from owners won’t give them everything that could potentially work for them.”
What works for potential tenants is knowing the total monthly cost of a given space, including rent, custodial and other charges, Atwater says. He provides all the information by doing what he calls an apples-to-apples comparison of available commercial spaces.
“Finding space is a daunting process for tenants,” Atwater adds. “When the Waters Corporation owned our own buildings, probably half of the people we showed property to didn’t have a broker. They thought it would be too expensive, but for them the service is free; the property owner pays the commission for getting the property leased.”
Source: Chris Atwater, Waters Tenant Representation, LLC
Photograph of Chris Atwater by Tiberius Images
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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