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Chuck Rozanski of Mile High Comics on His $1,000,000 Mistake

Chuck Rozanski, owner of Mile High Comics, writes about the closure of the Cleveland branch, with a lesson he wishes to share to other comic book store owners – buy, don't rent. He writes,

A million dollar mistake.

I spent my New Year's Day on a final cleaning of our Colorado Blvd. Mile High Comics retail store, which we are closing after nearly 29 years. For the most part, I am OK with closing this store, as I fervently believe that the economics of comics publishing simply no longer allow smallish neighborhood comics shops to be successful.

As a side note I do, however, want to caution anyone so foolish as to be considering renting a store (or a house/apartment) to not make the same foolish mistake that I did in making someone else's mortgage payments for them (via my monthly rent…) for nearly 30 years.

Our store rent started at $1,400 in 1990, and rose continuously until it was $5,300 last month. At an average of $3,000/month X 345 months = $1,0350,000 of potential equity that I flushed down the drain by renting, instead of buying, a store in 1990. Blessedly, I did buy our 56th Ave. warehouse/headquarters in 1986, which I sold for $1,600,000 three years ago. I also own our huge Jason St. building.

Never, ever, rent!

Other store owners chimed in. Shelton Drum of Heroes Aren't Hard To Find of Charlotte, North Carolina wrote

I was disappointed when we were not offered a new lease 2 years ago. I worked a deal to buy my old warehouse and remodeled it as the new Heroes! Best deal I've ever made! Mortgage is almost half of what my rent was! Happy New Year for real!

To Chuck's reply;

I am so happy that you successfully managed to transition to owning rather than renting. Buying Jason St. was a huge risk for me, too, but it just appraised at $3,500,000 over what I paid in for it in 2010. I loved my Red Raven #1, but I would sell it again in a heartbeat to buy Jason St…

Dennis Barger of Wonderworld Comics of Michigan wrote,

I'm glad it only took me 13 years to learn this mistake

And Frederick Marcus of A Time Lost And Found in New Jersey added,

i was at my last location for 18 years. i had a landlord who did nothing but collect the rent. i did all the repairs. his idea of renting was to raise the rent every year. i started in this industry in 1975 but started at that location in 1994. at that time there was a lot of uncertainty in the industry and i didn't even consider buying. 230 thousand dollars later in 2009 with a landlord who never appreciated me paying the rent on time an taking care of the property i told him either freeze the rent or i was gone. this guy tells me if i want to f-cking go then go, if i want to f-cking stay then stay. that was it for me. i was going to retire but i bought a retail location near my home that came with a 3 bedroom apartment which offsets my mortgage. been here 9 years now. if i knew back in 94 that i would still be doing this i would have never rented. the thing is you can never know. renting is the best option when so much uncertainty is involved.

Anyone in favour of renting?

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