320 m² commercial unit in Lyon 2nd, 49 rue Auguste Comte

Rue Auguste Comte links place Bellecour to Perrache station. It is the axis of Lyon's antique dealers and craft trades, extended today by interior design names, galleries and treatment rooms. The district takes its name from Ainay, after its Romanesque abbey.

This address has two qualities a business measures quickly. It is central, a few minutes on foot from Bellecour, the largest pedestrian square in Europe. And it is well served: the Ampère-Victor Hugo stop is on metro line A, and Perrache brings together the trains, the coaches and the tram.

The district lives all year, which is not the case in every shopping district. The custom is residential, well off, loyal, and it does not disappear in August. For a service or treatment business, that steadiness is worth more than a seasonal peak.

The question comes up often, so we may as well answer it. LOCAMAXIME has been letting homes year-round in Sainte-Maxime since 1971, and also owns two commercial units, one in the centre of Sainte-Maxime, the other in Lyon. These are premises, not businesses: we let the space, we run no activity of our own.

A portfolio is built over several decades and it rarely follows a tidy map. This one grew through successive opportunities, and it is managed the same way: direct, with no management company in between, with the same people from the start.

This 320 m² unit is occupied by an Algotherme franchise run by Deep Nature Premium. It is not on the market today and we are not putting it back up for let. We present it because it forms part of the portfolio, and because a prospective tenant discovering our site has the right to see what we own.

Our tenants in Sainte-Maxime sign a three-year residential tenancy agreement, governed by the law of 6 July 1989. The tenant of this unit in Lyon has signed a 3/6/9 commercial lease, governed by the commercial code. The two contracts have almost nothing in common.

The commercial lease commits both parties for nine years, with the tenant able to leave at the end of each three-year period. It opens a right to renewal, and compensation for eviction if the landlord refuses that renewal. It is a contract that protects the business goodwill, that is to say the custom built up at this address.

The residential tenancy agreement, for its part, protects a person's home. The tenant's notice period is short, the landlord's is long, and the law frames the deposit, the recoverable service charges and the grounds for notice. So the same owner has entirely different obligations depending on whether he lets a flat or business premises.

What does not change from one contract to the other, with us: there is no agency between the tenant and the owner. Noletting fees, no application fees, and an answer that goes through nobody.

Three hundred and twenty square metres in the heart of a city like Lyon is a rare area. It opens uses that a standard street-level unit does not allow: several separate cabins or rooms, a reception area, changing rooms, stores, a plant room.

The split over two floors serves exactly that. The ground floor receives, with its window onto the street. The lower level takes what does not need daylight: treatments, storage, plant, staff. That is the classic layout for wellbeing and health businesses in an old town centre.

Such a volume brings constraints to match. Public access, ventilation, drainage, fire safety: the obligations of premises open to the public are not handled at the last minute. They are costed before signing, not after.

The unit is today run by an Algotherm franchise under the Deep Nature Premium name. The lease is running, and we have no intention of putting it back on the market. This page exists for transparency about the portfolio, not as an advert.

Managing premises at a distance calls for two things: a tenant settled for the long haul, and rules written clearly at the outset. That is the case here, and it is why this unit asks almost nothing of us.

A well-drafted commercial lease settles in advance what, elsewhere, gets discussed in a hurry: the permitted use of the unit, the split of service charges item by item, what happens to fit-out works at the end of the lease, and the renewal terms.

We apply the same method in Sainte-Maxime, to residential tenancy agreements. The contract is shorter, the obligations are different, but the principle does not change: everything written before signing is no longer up for discussion afterwards.

It is also what lets us remain private landlords with no management company. Since 1971, the family has held the portfolio, and every tenant speaks to the person who decides.

Ainay is one of the oldest districts in Lyon, laid out around its Romanesque basilica. It is a dense, well-to-do residential area, with its food shops, its antique dealers and its professional practices.

That density makes the difference for a business. The customers live locally and they are there all year, which changes everything compared with a footfall pitch that depends on passing trade.

Rue Auguste Comte itself is a street the people of Lyon know, famous for its antique dealers. An address you remember without having to explain it is worth a lot when you open: the customer finds it alone the second time.

Finally, the Presqu'île concentrates the transport. Metro line A at Ampère-Victor Hugo, Perrache station for the trains, the coaches and the tram, and Bellecour a few minutes on foot. No customer has an excuse for not coming.

This unit is not available and we are not putting it back on the market. If you are looking for commercial premises in Lyon's Presqu'île, we will not be able to help you directly, but we are happy to answer a question about the commercial lease or about the layout of the place.

For our homes in Sainte-Maxime, everything is on the Properties page, with the rents, the service charges and the energy certificates.

• Presqu'île address, Ainay district, between Bellecour and Carnot
• 320 m² over two floors, ground floor level with the street
• Lyon building in golden stone, exposed stone walls
• Metro Ampère-Victor Hugo two minutes away, Perrache five
• No agency fees and no introduction commission
• Private landlords since 1971, reachable all year