When I got licensed in Philadelphia I was blown away to discover I could take the OSHA 30, have the appropriate car insurance, and basically tear down and rebuild a house from the ground up with zero experience.

That is calculated as the Replacement Cost (RC) (cost to rebuild today with like kind and quality) minus the depreciation. 

Planning, bidding, demolishing, rebuilding, etc…. and time it to be finished when the “inherited lease” is up.

The intent it to completely rebuild these units (200+ people living in these townhomes). 

Hopefully, in a couple of years, they'll be rebuilding and who knows maybe it'll eventually be the place to be.

Better to build from scratch or buy a wreck that is cheap and rebuild it the way you want.  

The problem with mixed use sometimes is you cannot rebuild it in the same configuration (can't get insurance for replacement and city/county won't allow rebuild).

I figured this would create some possibility of buying dirt cheap land in heavily affected areas and maybe holding until people rebuild around it and being the value back up maybe??

This is the cost of rebuilding the same product.

So, even if your insurance rebuilds your property, there might not be anyone to rent it.