Retail Development- New developer Help Please!

[Canesha Edwards]

Hello everyone,

Well a little background Information. My team has 7.6 acres under contract in a suburb of Atlanta,Ga. Currently, there are 4 homes on the property. However, after putting the land under contract, I discovered that the property would have to be rezoned due to a future land use code the county recently designated for the parcels. I know, mistake number one. I say this because given the extra expenses needed to rezone the property, our contract price is too high. I have some preliminary cost numbers for the rezoning process to renegotiate the price with the owners and a firm that is going to handle the rezoning. We have funding lined up for the construction, contingent upon the county approving our plans.

The development would be a low intensity commercial project. One anchor store, and 5-7 smaller stores. Now I’ve never done a retail development or any sizable development period. So, how would I go about underwriting the deal? How do I find anchor stores, tenants? I’ve just been calling real estate managers for big box stores to see if there looking for additional locations. How do I determine market rents for commercial properties?

I know this probably isn’t the typical first investment, and my team has made a lot of mistakes but, I feel this is a good deal if I can get the Price renegotiated, and I want to get the deal done.

Thank you in advance for any and all input.