Around Thanksgiving, Mirowski Inspections purchased a small building on Route 66 to house our inspection offices.   We are excited to share our progress with you as we enter this new year with an old building, converting the space into our own. 

Digging In

This week we started our planning path.  Since we have an amazing group of inspectors that each specialize in a specific field, we let them lead the way laying out plans for remodeling, and starting the teardown.   On the facility side, Steve has begun digging in, to the world of permits where we uncovered our first lesson learned.

AH HA-ZONING

One of the “ah-ha” moments (to date) is that you need to check on occupancy permits.  While we were smart enough to find out that the building was zoned commercial, (and since there was commercial signage on the building), we thought all was good to go.  However, when we dug into it, we found out that it was just recently changed to be zoned commercial and the building has an occupancy permit for residential from around the 1920’s.  Unfortunately, the city does not have anything recorded as an occupancy permit for a business.

Really, this doesn’t cause us too much heartburn.  We would have still purchased the building, and we would still be adding features for handicap accessibility and better structure enforcement.  But for others, this may be a big deal.  So, lesson one… check both zoning and occupancy because there may be some added steps and added cost.   

DECISIONS-DECISIONS

One of the best parts of our team is that each person is super invested in how this building turns out.  It is so rare that you have a group of individuals that share the same level commitment and ownership.  Everyone is adding input and value and everyone is helping with the decision making.   A couple of the features we will be adding will be accessibility, training and development features for the inspectors, and streamlined digital connectivity.  We also are going to check out new materials and efficiency designs.