Buying land and building with someone who is not a partner

[Mazyar A.]

Hi.

I am interested in buying a 1.5-acres land to construct a ground up office building that will be partially occupied by my business. I also want to build more square footage to lease out the rest. The problem is that I do not have enough capital to build to the maximum allowable size. I am thinking about brining on board someone else who wants to buy and share the land with me, and he wants to fully or partially occupy his share of the building(s).

The owner of the land is most likely not going to split the land before selling it to us.

I prefer not to be a legal partner with that person, as each of us is going to have a different business, but I would like each of us deal with owner of the land and also builders to some extent independently but still harmonically.

Without having a formal/legal partnership is this going to happen? And how?

Thanks.