The situation is very fluid still, and I haven't signed a lease contract yet, but have made a verbal agreement with the owner and the estate agent that I will take a two-year lease on the property (renewable, of course). I'm not permitted at present to publicize the actual address, because there are other tenants currently in the building, and we don't want to be bothering them in any way whatsoever with our own plans, but I can certainly divulge that it is very close to the heart of Asakusa, less than a minute's walk from Sensoji, the temple that is the center of the district. We're not going to be on the main Nakamise - the row of shops that lines the approach to the temple - nor do we want to be. We certainly couldn't handle the staggering rent that such a location would incur, and - honestly speaking - it's not going to be the 'tourist trinket' business that we will be aiming at.

When I talked about this the other day, it was with the suggestion that I would be joining forces with some other people to make a move like this, but it has turned out that such a thing will be neither appropriate nor necessary. The space that is available is too small for all of us, so I will be taking it on my own. There will be room for a small shop, a printer's workroom, and as for remainder of the space, I'd like to be a bit coy at the moment and hold that in reserve.

It may seem a bit overly dramatic of me to do that, but after studying the territory - and by 'territory' I mean 'print shops here in Tokyo' - I have realized that we here at Mokuhankan have a kind of 'secret sauce' that we can bring to a venture like this that the other companies are not utilizing (although they certainly could if they thought of it ...).

As we get a bit closer, I will certainly be talking more openly about our plans; I will need to do so, in order that we can hit the ground running. At that time, I'll put up the budget plans, etc. etc. so you can all go over them with a critical eye, in the hope that you can either find holes, or perhaps help convince me that we do actually have a workable business plan.

The timetable is good; the current tenants are (hopefully) clearing the building by the end of October. I would take possession on November 1st, and we should be open in 'test' mode a few weeks later, with the official opening perhaps on December 1st. It's still a bit too early to call. That means of course that Oct/Nov/Dec will be beyond insane for us; we'll be doing gangbuster business with our Gift Prints online just then (although preparation for that will have been done beginning in late summer), and we'll also be getting the new 2015 Heroes Subscription series ready for its January startup (working on the first print and on all the publicity).

In the meantime we have a ton of planning now on the table: a lot of spreadsheet work, project charting, staff training, cabinet building, on-line reservation system programming, store designing, etc. and (infinitely) etc.

And I also have to figure out which technology to use for building our sign, perhaps a canvas one like the small one on our present building, or perhaps a more permanent fully built-out 3D one ...

For now, a quick little Photoshop runup will have to suffice!