The Development Masterclass: Finding the Right Property
The Development Masterclass: Powered by Chekdd
This Chekdd Development Masterclass / Development Playbook is designed to breakdown the most simple concepts of going through each stage of the process in building your own building.
A. The Search
First thing on the list is to find a property that is the right fit for your vision. You may want to build a residential building, an office tower, or a hotel. Regardless, you will need to determine that sooner rather than later, in order to determine you pick the right spot.
Step 01:
You will need to find a location in a city that is right for what you are planning to propose. First is the Ideal Location. For residential and retail, we want to be as close to the central downtown or central corridor as possible. We will need to ensure we have ample size of lot for parking spaces to support the apartment we are designing for.
The other component is desired retail on the building. You should typically only have retail on the ground floor, as it is not viable to have 2nd floor retail that succeeds (unless it is in a shopping mall area). So the big question to answer here is the total frontage and the total SF (Area) we plan to have. Ensuring the retail is street facing to have frontage that is visible to pedestrians and vehicular traffic is vital.
Once we have a few lots selected, we will need to look at city ordinances and zoning requirements that are currently enforced on that lot.
This isn’t a ‘deal killer’ by any means, but it does mean that areas zoned for office when you are striving for a residential building will require a change in zoning by the city to do so. Typically, this can be a somewhat cumbersome experience that will take time to resolved.
Along with that are items like:
Building Height Requirements
Window opening locations
Spacing between your building and adjacent buildings (also known as building alley size)
FAR (Floor Area Ratio) This a factor number that is multiplied onto the SF (area) of the site to determine the size of building you can create for that area - see our example below
Looking for a more detailed breakdown of the above? Looking to find an ‘all-in’ solution so you can hit the ground running fast? Sign up to Chekdd for the full en-suite of Development Services to ensure you hit the ground running.