Basement vs Commercial Office Building?

Gents (mostly), I posted in the design thread for help designing a space, with the intent of buying a plot of land and putting up a house, with a purpose built basement studio... But I've discovered in the meantime that for the same price as the land and a medium sized house, I can buy a "commercial condo", which is a "live-work space" in a 3 floor office building. The size would be 1900 square feet (170 sq meters), with 12 foot (3.5 meter) ceilings. The building is mostly vacant at the moment, except for the bottom floor which has a chiropractor, an insurance agent, and a rather tasty Asian restaurant. I could probably get a spot on the top floor. Which would you rather have, a basement studio on an oversized residential lot, or a studio in a commercial office building? The pros cons of each I can think of are: Residential: Pros: + Easier to soundproof because of distance from neighbors + Possibly better "standard of living", assuming I'd live in the office space + Built "from scratch", so more control over the design + More total square footage Cons: - Possibility of violating zoning laws, or causing tension with community - Probably lower ceilings - Less contiguous floor space (because it's divided between a basement and an upstairs) Commercial Pros: + Maybe an extra air of legitimacy with customers + Tall ceilings + More contiguous floor space, and the option to make living space smaller and studio bigger + Possibly better overall acoustics + One of my favorite restaurants is downstairs Cons: - More soundproofing needed - Lower "comfort" - My dog might not like it - Less privacy while entering and leaving, for myself and bands - One of my favorite restaurants is taking my money downstairs - Would need to float the floor; can the building support the weight? Anything else you can think of? What do you think is a better choice, if a studio is a priority in my life? Thanks, Harley.

The elevated floors present challenges not associated with an Earth damped structure. For me, because I like design and I build things for a living, my money would be on a new structure that all the gremlins could be worked out before they are firmly entrenched in the structure and eat up your budget before you even get started.

I totally agree with Brien on this. Building a studio on an upper floor in a commercial building is going to be hard, and expensive, since isolation is not going to be easy. As Brien said, then slab in the basement is damped, but the slab in the commercial building is not, and that introduces complications. Your chances for success are much better with a "greenfield" build, from the ground up. My US$ 0.02. - Stuart -

I recently used IKEA's design tool, but it was geared towards home projects. Does anyone know where I can find a similar tool for [SPAM LINK REMOVED BY MODERATOR]

Does anyone know where I can find a similar tool

What we normally use here on the forum is SketchUp, which is free. It is very powerful, once you learn it. - Stuart -

Because of posting such ponder full outline it help at purchasing a plot of area time .All the portions included in home purchasing, especially the budgetary ones.well, that relies on upon various elements yet i concur. [... AND THE MODERATORS CONCUR THAT SPAM SHOULD BE DELETED, AND SPAMMERS BANNED! BYE!...]