Research and Re-visioning

Numerous costs and requirements must be taken into consideration during project conceptualization and re-visioning. These include, but are not limited to, planning and zoning regulations, pro-rata fees, franchise utility costs, excavation and grading, detention, phase-one environmental site assessments (ESAs), easements and encroachments, and the ultimate cash-on-cash return of a project. For residential lot developments, a preliminary land valuation model (see below) can be used to quantify many of the expenses listed above; thereby, helping lot developers determine the feasibility of a project. On the other hand, developers may find themselves working on a project that has already been constructed and is in major need of re-visioning. For my MLPD capstone project, fellow classmates and I were presented with a site that had limited to no landscaping and a building that was constructed for a single-use tenant, during the 1970s. We proposed redesigning light industrial and vacant space into class A office space with courtyard amenities, retail and restaurant pads along the frontage road, and a redesigned facade of the main building. My teammates and I acknowledged that our proposal would require a fair amount of capital to become reality; however, we strongly believed that our proposal was the most practical of our counterparts, if the owners were to take the re-visioning of this project seriously.