Vellum, on the corner of Ferrin and Ninth.
A 15-year flagship lease at Orchard Row’s new building, for Priya, Marcus, Helen and Ines at Vellum Motors.
6:40 a.m. The showroom glass is still lit from the night.
You sell cars online. Your buyers still want to sit in one first.
8:15 a.m. From Vellum’s leasing brief, August 2026
You sent us four pages. Three sentences in them decided how we drew this building’s ground floor.
“We want a door on a real street. A mall corridor tells people we’re a gadget.”
So the space is a corner with glass on two streets.“A test drive should start at the curb. Nobody wants to walk three levels down a garage to meet the car.”
So drives leave from a bay on Ninth Street, at street level.“Delivery day is the best day of owning a Vellum. It should happen where people can see it.”
So the handover bay has a glass door that opens onto the sidewalk.What you have today
- 3Mall studios, 2,400 square feet each, inside the corridor
- Next dayTest drives booked for another visit from a car parked off site
- DockHandovers in a loading dock behind the mall
What the corner gives you
- 23,590People walk past the glass on a weekday, by our own count in September
- CurbDrives start at the Ninth Street bay, with 12 charged cars one level down
- StreetHandovers behind a glass door, in full view of the sidewalk
Watch the corner for a whole day.
Drag the hour. The sun moves, the people and traffic follow our count from two weekdays in September, and the glass comes on at dusk.
Lay out the floor, then look at it from the street.
11:30 a.m. 18,000 square feet, 160 feet of glass on Ferrin Boulevard, 112 on Ninth Street
Pick a piece, then tap the plan. Tap a square again to clear it. The strip under the plan redraws the frontage so you see what someone walking past would see.
Ferrin Boulevard on the left, the corner entrance, then Ninth Street. Drawn at noon.
From an empty lot to opening night.
November 2026 to November 2028. Scroll to build it.
Four sign-offs, four questions.
Each of you asked us one thing on the first call. Here are the answers, worked through with your own numbers where you gave them.
Will enough people walk in to make a flagship pay?
Priya, Head of Retail
Our count gives the people who walk past. The four rates below are yours to set, since you know your studios better than we do. We started them at cautious figures, and orders here are compared with your best mall studio.
Weekend counts run higher than weekdays. We used the weekday count for every day of a 30-day month.
What are we tied to, and where are the exits?
Marcus, Head of Real Estate
Fifteen years from the day the doors open, with a way out at year ten and two ways to stay longer. Switch them on and the term redraws, with the exit cost worked from the fit-out allowance you’ve chosen in the price.
What does the corner cost us per car sold?
Helen, Chief Financial Officer
Your three mall studios cost about $3,500 in rent for every car they sell, by the figures in your brief. Set how many cars this store sells and the price, and the corner’s rent follows whatever you’ve kept in the price below.
4.1 percent of sales
Can it look like Vellum and nothing like a dealership?
Ines, Head of Brand and Design. Drawn at 9 p.m.
The storefront is yours to specify inside the building’s design code. Change the signs, the glass and the light, and the corner redraws at night. Your choices carry through every drawing on this page.
Name on the storefront
Allowed by the building’s design code
Corner signs
Roof letters need a city sign variance
Glass panes
Low-iron panes, 13 feet tall
Light after dark
Allowed all night
The rent, line by line.
One base lease, the same in every version. Five lines sit on top, and each one can go on its own.
The base lease
18,000 square feet at $84 a square foot a year, rising 2.5 percent each year, with the first four months free. Storefront signs, the double-height shell, and your own entrance on the corner are part of it.
The lease in plain words.
8:00 p.m. What the lawyers will write, said the way we’d say it across a table
Fifteen years from opening
The term starts the day your doors open, so construction delays never eat into your years on the corner.
Rent rises 2.5 percent a year
Fixed for all fifteen years. No market reviews, so Helen can model it today and it stays true.
Late keys cost us
If the shell isn’t yours by August 1, 2028, every late day earns you two days of free rent.
Two ways to stay
Two five-year renewals at 95 percent of the market rent then, your call each time, with a year’s notice.
One way out
At year ten you can leave by paying back the unused fit-out allowance plus six months of rent.
The glass is yours after dark
You set the hours. The showroom can stay lit until 1 a.m. under the building’s lighting plan.
Four things we don’t know yet.
Each one has a date and a fallback, so none of them can surprise you.
The curb cut on Ninth Street needs the city’s sign-off.
We filed in September and the transportation department decides by March 2027. If it says no, handovers run from garage level P1 and the delivery bay line comes off your rent.
Decision due March 2027Roof-line letters need a sign variance.
The blade sign is allowed as things stand. The roof letters go to the zoning board with your approval of the design. If they’re refused, the signage line drops by $12,000 a year.
Hearing after you approve the designGarage chargers wait on a transformer.
The utility has scheduled the upgrade for spring 2028. If it slips, we lend you a mobile charging unit until it’s in, at our cost.
Utility date April 2028Service drop-offs live under apartments.
Residents above mean drop-offs happen between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. We think that covers your service day. Tell us if it doesn’t.
Yours to confirm
Initial the letter tonight, and the corner is held for you.
The letter of intent holds the space and these terms for 60 days while both sides’ lawyers draft the lease. It doesn’t commit you to rent.
Theo, Orchard Row’s leasing director, counter-signs within two working days.