Commercial · facade shell

That blank wall is unleased square footage.

A half-arch glazed shell bolts onto an existing wall and encloses the strip of pavement in front of it — four-season patio, vendor row, glazed arcade, showroom bay. No land to buy, no foundation walls, no footprint to rezone. For roughly half the per-square-foot cost of a conventional build-out, you get floor you can lease.

Run the rent maths → The energy play instead

What owners put in it

Four ways a dead elevation starts earning

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Four-season patio

A seasonal patio earns for four months. Enclose it in a glazed arch and it earns for twelve — the same tables, the same licence area, a solar-tempered room instead of a tent. Restaurants and breweries are the fastest yes in this product.

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Vendor & market stalls

A run of arch along a wall subdivides into stalls you can rent by the month. Rent per stall against a bay you already own is the highest-yield case we model — and the calculator prices it per stall, not per square foot, because that's how you'd actually lease it.

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Glazed arcade

Along a blind elevation or between two buildings, the arch becomes a lit, weather-protected walkway with leasable frontage on one side — the cheapest way to turn a service alley into retail adjacency.

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Showroom & display bay

Glazed, daylit space for equipment, vehicles, plants or product — a display room facing the street for the price of the shell, not the price of an addition.

Why it reads as revenue

Yield on cost, not cost per foot

A build-out is an expense you justify. Leasable floor is an asset you underwrite. The calculator does it the way an owner would: added square feet × market rent × occupancy, minus operating cost, equals NOI. NOI divided by what you spent is yield on cost — hold it up against your cap rate and you can see immediately whether the shell creates value or just moves it.

On typical small-market numbers a Sophab Atrium lands in the high single digits to low twenties for yield on cost, which is well clear of a 7–8% cap rate. Capitalised, the NOI is usually worth more than the shell cost — that spread is the whole pitch.

And we price the honest comparison beside it: the same floor area built conventionally — foundation, framing, cladding, windows, insulation, interior, electrical, heat — so "a fraction of a build-out" is a number you can check, not a slogan.

Run your rents →

A long half-arch along a commercial frontage, divided into nine vendor bays with counters, produce and shoppers under the glass

Rent & payback calculator

Run it on your wall

Pick the use and size the shell against your wall — the model shows what you're sizing. Occupancy, operating cost and cap rate are behind one click; the defaults are small-market estimates, not your rent roll. You get the added square footage, the NOI, the yield on cost, the value created at your cap rate, a ten-year roll-up and the itemised install cost.

Where it fits, and where it doesn't

Be clear-eyed about the space you're getting

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Right for

Patios, market and vendor space, arcades, showrooms, display and staging, covered circulation, growing space — uses that want daylight and a solar-tempered envelope, and that tolerate a curved ceiling and a glazed wall.

Best on a wall with southern exposure, on ground you already control, on a building whose wall can take a ledger and whose site has room for footings.

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Not right for

Year-round conditioned office or clinical space, anything needing solid walls for privacy, racking or hanging loads, or a fully insulated code-built envelope. A glazed shell is not a cheaper version of an addition — it's a different product with different economics.

We'll tell you which one you're actually asking for before you spend anything.

Example · arcade

The cheapest way to give a dead wall frontage

A blind elevation earns nothing and costs you maintenance. A glazed arcade along it becomes lit, weather-protected circulation with leasable frontage on one side — and on a long run the shop-built arches get cheaper per foot, not dearer.

Same shell, same engineering package, priced by the same takeoff as every other configuration.

Price a run on your wall →

A glazed arcade along a blank brick commercial elevation, with benches, planters and people walking its length

How it's built

Ledger, footings, shop-built arches

Half-arches spring from footings or piers at grade and land on a structural ledger fixed to your wall, glazed in multiwall polycarbonate and flashed into the existing cladding. The arches are shop-built and identical, so a long run gets cheaper per foot, not dearer.

Commercial jobs come with an engineer-ready set per address covering the structure, the connection to your wall, the load path to NBCC, egress and the glazing spec — plus a leasable fit-out allowance in the estimate (deck, lighting, power, egress door), because empty shell space doesn't collect rent.

The arch, in detail →

Section through the half-arch shell attached to an existing wall

One-pager

The Sophab Atrium sell sheet

One page: the use cases, rent per added square foot against install cost, yield on cost versus cap rate, and the build-out comparison — sized to forward to a partner or a lender.

📩 Email me the Sophab Atrium sheet

Planning-grade estimates, not an income projection. Rent, occupancy and operating outcomes depend on your market and tenants; leasing enclosed space may require zoning, occupancy or licensing review, and every installation requires a structural review, sealed by your own engineer, of the actual wall and site.