Buying ground in a new interstate district. Goal: Appreciation!

[Ross Wade]

Hello everyone! I'm new to the site. Actually just signed up a few days ago, but I have been listening to the BP podcast for a few months. Fairly green to the real estate game as far as purchasing goes, but have been working with real estate owners and investors for 5 years and have owned a property management company prior to currently, owning a construction company.

Recently, in the past few weeks, I've been working on my first purchase in real estate other than my own home. The ground I'm currently closing on is 2.9 acres of commercial zoned property in a newly developing area of my city. This new district has a dozen or so lots developed and divided for purchase that sit right next to a new interstate highway exit. Our local Economic Development has worked for several years on bringing new commerce to the area and have had some success. There is reliable sources of information circling about a major car manufacturing company buying and building in this district, which would bring in thousands of jobs. I'm currently searching for factual answers on what is coming and when. We've already seen a couple local commercial lots in the area sell for 250k-310k per acre when we normally see an average of 30k to 60k per acre here. My purchase was agreed on 2.9 acres with a 6000 sqft building already on the property with an office and storage/shop options for a total cost 230k.

I'm excited to see the appraisal come in on the ground and hoping to work a deal of no cash down by using the instant equity to fund construction of new self storage units on half of the lot. I've heard and researched some huge appreciations and equities on newly built storage units in the right area. If we do get enough appreciation/equity out of the storage units, we plan on building apartments on the other half of the lot to aid in the housing shortage here.

I would greatly appreciate any advice from anyone whom has experience in commercial development or has seen a similar situation blossom. Also, would like to hear some insight from storage unit owners about the do's and don'ts of that industry. Currently we are running numbers to find possible cash flow but would like to see more info on appreciation potential.

Thank you in advance!

Ross