The Blue Smurf Flip Part 1

My first career was as a Naturopathic Doctor and all through post graduate school I dreamt of owning and running my own multidisciplinary clinic. So naturally, we decided to take on this project after having a triplex and 5 single family home flips under our belts. This was an entirely different beast though. Commercial properties were out of our budget at the time and so we had to find a residential property that could be converted into a commercial space. 

When we came across the blue smurf house in downtown Kitchener we knew it was perfect. The proximity to downtown and public transit was ideal. It was located on Victoria street, which is one of the busier streets in Kitchener and so it’d be great for drive by marketing. It also had the perfect layout to have a mortgage helper with an upper residential unit. When we bought the building there were several challenges to overcome immediately. Most importantly, this legal nonconforming duplex had the zoning we needed to make the conversion from duplex to commercial and residential, mixed use building (MU) zoning.

The driveway debacle 

While working on the site plan approval for permits, we had to do a property survey and discovered that the driveway was not actually on our property! Well, a very small portion of it was, but most of it sat on the neighbouring property. Yikes! Our lawyer tried to get title insurance to cover the cost of moving the driveway or buying the land from our neighbour. Unfortunately, insurance would not cover this expense so it had to come out of our corporation's pocket. We ended up moving the driveway onto the other side of the property and redoing the entire parking lot with curbing, room for snow storage, accessibility parking and lighting for safety. 

Permitting

This process was slow and   l      o     n      g. In total, it took about 1.5 years to get our stamp of approval to open our doors to the public. We required a variance for the parking lot as regulations stated we needed 7 parking spots plus an accessibility space. We were able to fit 4 parking spots plus one accessibility spot. The variance process alone was tedious. We had to attend meetings and panels where we had to present the project and explain how the building could function with fewer parking spaces.  During the process of working with the city we also learned that the city was going to TAKE 10 ft off the front of the property for future city planning development. They just took it. We didn’t get paid for that land or receive anything in exchange, just gone. To add insult to injury, we had to cover the legal costs of giving the land to the city. This project was starting to feel a bit cursed. Oh, we were also required to make what was basically a donation to Victoria Park if we wanted our permit. In the end, the permitting of the blue smurf house cost us $60K. Yes, you read that right 6 followed by 4 zeroes.  

Layout and Additions

We did some minor layout changes in the upper residential unit. The goal was to create a nicer flow in the kitchen and bathroom and to add a utility room so that it would run separate from the commercial unit. Additionally, we made it beautiful as that is not the word I would use to describe it when we found it. The main floor, which would be the clinic/commercial space, is where the bulk of changes happened. Originally it had a full kitchen, one bathroom and two bedrooms. By the time we were done it had 2 bathrooms, a kitchenette, 3 offices, a reception area, and an addition on the front of the building to make a studio space for yoga, classes/workshops, etc. To do this we had to reinforce the basement foundational walls to support the main floor and add a beam in the main floor unit to support the upper unit allowing for such a drastic layout change.

I think that’s enough of a journey down memory lane for the blue smurf project. today Check back in next week to learn more about the construction process of it! 

When you found out about the driveway would you have left it or moved it? Or would you have just moved on from the project all together (There was a brief moment we considered this!)?

Catch you on the flip side,