Turn apt land into Parking Lot business, anyone?

[Albert D.]

Dear BP community,

I welcome your constructive comments and suggestions to my crazy idea above.

Here is the background.  My apt complex was burned down in a wildfire last year.  I've been trying to rebuild it since Jan this year.  However, the task just seems to overwhelming, esp. I'm remote (8 hours away) and have a full-time job.

So I came up with this genius idea as an interim solution.  Maybe I can run it as a public parking lot for a while until I get comfortable on the learning curve and build a trustworthy network of local people who can do the jobs required (architect, engineer, GC, builders, etc.).

I figure that the parking lot business will take very small investment upfront and will generate some cash to cover annual property tax and then some.  But I could be wrong.

Can anyone share some knowledge on how much to build the parking lot, automated payment collection (I saw a credit card machine in the middle of parking lot with solar panel on top of the pole), and cost to undo the parking lot and build back the apartments?

More details on the vacant land:

Location: A- minus location; three blocks away from the busiest street in downtown Gatlinburg; 10 minutes walk to the Space Needle, which is in the middle of Parkway.  Over 10 million people visit the Smoky Mountain National Park each year and a lot of them will walk this main street.

Competition: Three public parking lots in between my land and the main street.  They together host hundreds of cars and charge between $6-$10 a day.  When I was there late March, two of them were full and one was half full.  I can charge $5/day and hopefully get half full for the high seasons (Apr - Oct).

Capacity: My land is zoned R2, with a density of FAR 0.5.  The total building area is around 9,000 SQF.  Each parking space is about 162 SQF.  So I can build 50 plus parking spaces if I use up all the 9,000 SQF.  But I guess we need to build some spaces to allow cars to back up, etc.  Let's say between 30-50 parking spaces in total.

Income: Assume $5/space/day, 30 spaces, 50% occupancy, 200 days rented, we are looking at $1,5000 annual income.  This definitely covers property tax and insurance as well as minor repairs.

Cost: This is where I need help most.  No idea how much it costs to get it ready, paint the stripes and install the solar powered credit card machine.  I guess that's the bulk of the costs.  Maybe later on, how much to get rid of the stuff and pour concrete for apt rebuild.  Since I envision an automated operation so no labor costs for management here.

Regulation/permits: Need help as well.  Do I need to change zoning from R2 to something else?  How?  Any special licenses/permits needed for a public parking lot business?  Any special tax?

I look forward to your advice.