Hello,
A few weeks ago a friend of mine who was a retired physician and an avid photographer employing traditional & alt process sadly passed away at age 74 due to cancer. Among his estate he left behind what I consider to be one the nicest darkrooms I have ever seen. He purchased the 680 sq. foot space in a business park in our extremely expensive resort town for about $345,000 in 2005. He then proceeded to outfit it with all the best equipment, LPL4450 XLG, Jobo Autolab 800, ATL 1000, brand new 30” deep Leedall sinks, etc. The ventilation and climate control system is incredibly functional although not surprising for a man who held 29 patents. He was so OCD about dust in our hard to dust proof region that he kept all his LF lenses in ziplock bags in his photo backpack.
So the total tab on the darkroom and renovation to the commercial space was close to 100K in addition to what he paid for the property. Basically I have been struggling in my tiny 15 sq. foot closet darkroom in that it is just not cutting it on several levels, proper ventilation being one of them. I was asked if I could be hired to help catalog and value the darkroom end of the estate but it has dawned on me I might try to get an SBA or other type of loan and buy it outright, selling items I don’t use or need and having a proper darkroom to both create my own work and hold workshops.
The family is willing to work with me, I am no longer part of the cataloging and valuation process so I am starting to work towards buying it at my wife’s insistence to at least try. What I am wondering is that since I am pretty much the ideal person to buy this, what leeway might I expect if were to make an offer for all of it turnkey? If I were not the party to buy the property, it would have to be completely gutted and brought to a point that it could sell in a generic sense. The darkroom and camera equipment would be dealt with in a manner consistent with how estate sales would usually go. So the process of selling it to the general public might take a lot more work, hands in the pot of the sale of the property / equipment.
I also feel like my friend’s hard work and vision would be put to good use in eventually becoming a place of learning in passing forward the art of the darkroom. I am sure as heck not going to be able to low ball them and to be honest, I would not be surprised if the sale price on this all inclusive tipped the scales at a bit over half a million, a huge investment for my wife and I considering we don’t own any other real estate.
This is niche inquiry and one heck of a long shot, but man…I have to try.
Any insights on this would be appreciated.
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