looking for ideas to on how to develop a Commercial Property

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Looking for some advice on a 3.1 acre property we own across from a Walmart. Property is free and clear and looking for ideas on how to partner with a developer to improve it. I ended up with the property in a trade deal... Last MAI appraisal was 1.2M but Its probably worth somewhere in the 600-700k range in the real world.  I'm a residential investor and have no experience with commercial development so all comments would be appreciated. 

[Joel Owens]

The H and H carpet building at the red light is a much better spot.

I like buying buildings like that and leveling to build new or re-adapt.

There is a concrete median in the road. That deters consumers from a site so then what happens is you only get one side of the road traffic and it is not the Wal-mart side which daily counts are likely much higher from cross traffic. You would need to check with your state DOT for daily traffic counts for each side of the road. Some states have a website where they track it. You can see up to 10 years sometimes and if daily traffic numbers have declined, increased and by how much percentage year over year.

There also seems to be a bridge with a main waterway between your site and the Wal-mart site. Although you mention 3 acres the land is more deep then wide for sight lines and road frontage. Basically if you could take the rectangle you have and turn it sideways you would have a less deep lot but more road frontage and sight line exposure. Tenants tend to like close to the street for easy turn ins as consumers are lazy. That is why I do not like concrete medians where the consumer has to do all these extra steps to reach a location for a business. The urgency of completing a task or service with a business has to override all the other problems for access. That happens rarely and not often. Example if I am going to Wal-mart on one side of the street and was thinking of Auto Zone. stop. If NAPA is on same side as Wal-mart and Auto Zone I have to do all these extra steps to get there than many consumers will go to NAPA first all things being equal.

800k for that site seems steep. On a per acre basis it is not that bad but because the lot is deep versus wide the first acre upfront is usually much more valuable than the 2 in back.

If I buy raw land I get under contract and have signed tenant lease in hand with non-refundable money before closing on it. If someone wants me to buy raw land without a tenant in place the price is going to drop down a lot like half or more. The reason is I might land a national,regional, or mom and pop tenant and they all pay different rent levels a sq ft.

What tenant turned your site down or was it a developer who decided to not go through with it?