Fieldstone Books Shop Viability & Direction — Reckoning Surface · Home Sheet

A navigable read of one decision space: whether and how the shop clears the owner-draw bar — rendered as a drawing set. Every path is one cut away; this sheet holds the whole structure.

Project
Fieldstone Books — Shop Viability & Direction
Owner
June Hartley · 14 yrs at the current site
Snapshot
2026-07-08
Sheet
A-01 · HOME
Scale
N.T.S.
Rev
0 — snapshot
Drawn by
Claude Code · design mockup — all content fictional
Checked
— (unchecked; not a real reckoning)
Datum · The Bar An owner draw of $3,800/month, sustained across a full year — including the January–February trough. Every read on this sheet is measured from this line.
1.0

The Read

GENERAL NOTES — READ FIRST
1.1

The current site does not clear the bar — and the fix the numbers point to is a rent structure change, not more sales effort. At stable sales (~$31K/month) and the current rent ($9,200/month), the owner's draw runs at roughly a third of the floor she named. The gap is structural, not seasonal.

1.2

It is a rent problem, not a demand problem. Sales have held within 4% for three years while rent rose 40%. At the Corner Site's quoted rent, the same sales clear the draw floor without any growth.

1.3

The stay-or-close binary is false. Between "make this site work" and "close the shop" sits a real option space — six paths that combine and sequence rather than compete. The map below is the resolution of this read: the recommendation, rendered spatially.

2.0

Combination Structure

HOW THE PATHS COMBINE — NOT A LIST
CONCURRENT — NONE BLOCKS ANOTHER FIRST STAGE — RUN NOW, TOGETHER 1 The Corner Site Move 1,100 sq ft at ~$4,800/month, four blocks north — the load-bearing test: every other read updates on whether the landlord will sign a five-year term I D-1 2 The Membership Program paying members at $15/month — 62 pledges collected at the register, none yet charged; margin that doesn't depend on foot traffic 3 Café Co-Tenancy splitting the Corner Site with Greenway Café: shared rent, extended hours, separate tills — raises the move's odds; the shop keeps mornings, gains evenings HELD WARM — BEHIND CONDITION 4 The Staff Co-op Sale three staff have independently raised buying in — nothing priced yet ESCALATION CONDITION If the five-year term falls through, or paying memberships stall below the floor by Mar 1 → the co-op sale moves from held-warm to primary. Failed tests raise the signal — not elapsed time. THE BRACKET — THE FLOOR BENEATH THE TESTS 5 Wind Down with Intent not a failure state — a defined orderly close (inventory sale, mailing-list handoff, roughly $28–34K walk-away) that lets the tests run calm rather than desperate DEFERRED BY DESIGN — CONTEXT 6 Second Location the suburban satellite the wholesaler keeps suggesting — real only after a full year above the draw floor at the new site FIG. 2.1 — MAP OF THE OPTIONS · N.T.S. · NODES CUT TO PATH SHEETS P-01…P-06
FIG. 2.1 Paths 1–3 run now, together; path 4 waits behind its condition; path 5 holds the floor under all of it; path 6 is context, not a competitor.
Key — Line Conventions
  • Solid object line — active path; first stage runs now
  • Hidden line (oxblood) — held warm, behind the escalation condition
  • Bracket — the floor beneath the first stage; lets the tests run calm
  • Centerline, faint — deferred by design; context, not an equal-weight option
  • Dimension — relationship annotation, not a route
  • n Keynote — path number; cuts to that path's sheet
  • ID-1 Section mark — cut to a detail door (Doors I–III, below)
  • Datum — the bar all reads are measured from
  • Hatch — a range or zone, not a point; uncertainty drawn as area
3.0

Confidence Instruments

TWO KINDS — NEVER ON ONE SCALE
General note — read before the gauges Two kinds of confidence appear here and never sit on the same scale: confidence that a move is the right next move (a relative judgment across options) and confidence that a path clears the bar (an absolute prediction that depends on an unsigned lease and an uncharged membership list).
KIND A Right Next Move relative judgment
across options
~70% FIRST STAGE, COMBINED move + memberships + co-tenancy 0 20 40 60 80 100 CONFIDENCE THIS IS THE RIGHT NEXT MOVE, OVER THE ALTERNATIVES
The first stage, combined — the Corner Site move + the membership program + café co-tenancy — over the alternatives: ~70%.
KIND B Clears the Bar absolute prediction —
draw floor sustained 12 mo
0 50 100 ~50–55% a range, not a point
THE COMBINATION — genuinely uncertain; the residual is almost entirely the unsigned lease and the uncharged membership list.
0 50 100 ~35%
THE MOVE ALONE — Corner Site with no memberships and no co-tenant.
0 50 100 ~10%
THE BASELINE — staying at the current site as-is. Confidence in the "not viable as-is" read itself: ~85%.
Absolute predictions against the datum: the draw floor sustained twelve months. The combination's range is drawn as hatch — the width is the honest part.

Tilde (~) values throughout are hand-set reads, not measurements — drawn no more decisively than they are held.

4.0

Open Value — The Membership Floor

DIMENSION AWAITING A VALUE
___ MEMBERS — UNSET 020 4060 80100 120140 DISCUSSED 60–120 — NO VALUE SET FIG. 4.1 — THE FLOOR, LEFT UNDIMENSIONED
Definition The number of paying members by March 1 that counts as "the program works." Discussion has ranged 60–120, but the number is June Hartley's to set. This field is blank on purpose — an open decision, not a default and not a suggestion.
5.0

Path Index

SHEET LIST — ONE SHEET PER PATH
6.0

Detail Sheets — The Doors

WHERE THE DEPTH LIVES
Door I · Sheet D-1

The Rent Arithmetic

What each site costs against each membership level — and why no row at the current rent clears the draw floor.

 Door II · Sheet D-2

The Held Tensions

The living-room tension — the shop as the neighborhood's free civic space against the owner's pay — and the co-op timing tension — telling staff too early reads as an exit announcement; too late, and the three interested staff may have moved on. Held, not resolved, with what would settle each.

 Door III · Sheet D-3

What This Can't See

The landlord's actual intentions, the neighborhood's five-year trajectory, and whether the owner still wants the shop at all — taken as given here, not established.