Case Studies

Start-Up Optometry Practice Lease in Bloomfield Hills, Oakland County

The Situation

We first met Dr. Kevin Semma through his father-in-law, our friend and trusted vendor, Saad Kalabat of K4 Medical + Dental Construction. Saad knew what Dr. Semma was trying to do, and he knew we could help. That’s how a lot of our best work starts – someone in our network who understands both sides, makes an introduction.

Dr. Semma is an optometrist, who was working as an associate, but his long-term plan was to take over that practice. But when that didn’t come together, he pivoted and decided to build his own practice instead.

What he wanted was specific, and he was clear about it from the first conversation. He wanted to practice in the community he knew, near his friends and family. He didn’t want to be in a market that penciled well on a demographic report. He wanted a particular place, and it had nothing to do with a spreadsheet.

His vision is a harder assignment than it sounds – but it’s also the reason why it worked.

• The problem with wanting to be in one neighborhood is that Dr. Semma’s one neighborhood was tight. And it was genuinely tight – not just limited inventory in the way brokers say about every market.
• Now as a tenant representative, when a client gives you limited geography, you have two options:
  • You can spend engagement trying to talk them out of it and broaden their targeted area.
  • Or, you can take the constraint seriously and be tenacious.
• We took Dr. Semma’s goal seriously. We understood his preference to be near the people in his life with a patient base in his community. It’s the reason why a practice lasts thirty years instead of five.
• The tradeoff is that he wouldn’t get to compare twelve options. He would need to be ready for the one.

The Solution

• The one option that came along was the only availability in a premier neighborhood center on the border between Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham, anchored by Plum Market.
• On the surface, a shopping center may seem like a compromise until you look at what this opportunity actually meant. An optometry practice is part-medical, part retail, because people come for an exam and then spend real time choosing frames.
• A neighborhood center puts the practice directly in the path of people who are out, ready to make a discretionary, in-person purchase. And with an anchor like Plum Market, the tone is set for everything around it. It tells you the area has:
  • A high household income
  • A consistent, repeat traffic count, and
  • A landlord looking to curate a quality mix of tenants
• Not to mention, the location offers advantages every retail center benefits from:
  • Ground-floor access
  • Excellent parking, and
  • Visibility with building signage

Today, Maple Eye Care and Eyewear is open right where Dr. Semma wanted to be – in the community he knew with the patients he wanted to serve.

Congratulations, Dr. Semma!

His story is an example of how you can use clarity as an advantage. He knew what he wanted before we even started, and he was ready to move on it while everyone else was still deciding.

We took the geography constraint seriously – as it should be. We understood that it wasn’t just a preference, but it was a legitimate business requirement that would affect how long he would be happily operating his practice.

We’re grateful for having the opportunity to help Dr. Semma start his own practice and to Saad Kalabat for recognizing the right partnership.