The terms industrial and commercial are not interchangeable

In the middle of writing a sure to be rousing, crowd pleasing multi part series on –wait for it– continuous fusing machines, I find I need to do a short post on zoning. This will be useful for two groups of people, those looking to upgrade equipment or would like to and those looking for new digs. If you’ve never leased a business location before, it would be awful if you were locked into a place only to discover you couldn’t use it for the purposes you’d envisioned. The electrical power at a location you lease or buy can determine the kind of equipment you can use. So, if you’ve been pinning your hopes on a space in order to buy better machines, realize that many of these machines will not run on power available at a commercial location. You probably need an industrial space.

First, the terms industrial and commercial are not interchangeable, each mean something different. There are several kinds of commercial properties but these are typically stores, offices, restaurants and even malls. Industrial space ranges from light industrial (apparel and woodworking) to heavy, such as automotive or a steel mill. The costs between commercial and industrial locations can vary a lot. Some commercial properties are really fancy, designer touches, nice carpet while industrial spaces can be quite spare. Industrial space has a different class of amenities. Simplistically speaking though, industrial spaces cost less than commercial per square foot.

Industrial space will offer you a lot of amenities th