A couple of questions as I'd like to improve how I do this with my tenants:1) do you raise rents annually and if so, how much and how do you determine how much?

Before consulting with a lawyer, I wanted to pick the brains of this community :-)  I want to do this by the book so I'll have a clear case if/when we end up in court.  

You can cherry pick who you want to reach out to.REIAs are another great place to find realtors, lenders, contractors, other investors, etc.Best of luck to you!

In fact, throughout the Denver Metro area I could pick out 5 - 10 submarkets / neighborhoods / pockets of commercial space completely revitalized by the industry.

If you don't have a bank that has a branch in the area of the property, have them mail it in (get a money order), but ensure they know that the post mark date is not the date used for determining late payments, it is the date that the rent is in your hand that is the date used for payment of rent.

Determine the ARV for the property.  

(3) do your financial estimates (estimated return on investment and costs) account for capital appreciation, tax depreciation, equity pay-down, (or, specifically, what exactly is used to determine ROI). 

What I am having difficulty determining is how much sweat equity a developer should be entitled to.

You need to calculate the NOI to determine the CAP rate.

The most difficult is picking a direction and then comes the 2nd most difficult part, staying with it.