Valuing Commercial Real Estate Zoned Industrial

[Joseph Crane]

I'm looking to buy a business for it's assets (it's a construction rental business).  There is a piece of property that has great access and road frontage that's about a 3/4 of an acre with a house on it.  The house is old and has not been used for several decades except as the occasional office space.  The property is zone for light-residential usage.  The business has been paired down since the owner wants to retire (he went from $1M a year in business to $350K by selling equipment and not having as big of an inventory.

I know multi-family is appraised on NOI x cap rate instead of using comps for residential. Is light industrial/commercial property appraised by comps? If I use NOI, it would skew the value since he's downsized the business.

With that said, what would be the method to value the property as an asset?