The red tape and hoops that you have to deal with can be a nightmare and cause months of delay before you even touch a tree much less break ground.Also I agree with Devon, some architects do not live in reality (as a building contractor I live with it all to much) so it is important that you have a product to produce that you can not only sell in your market, but you can tweak and add value engineering to as you learn to construct your product, this can be equated to time or material, and is in my opinion the number one reason you would consider recreating a building multiple times and only change the façade. 

If you'd like to touch base, we can certainly do so.

You could show him the king of bargain basement commercial deals, and he wouldn't touch it without your skin in the deal.

Some people won't touch student properties but others have made good money investing in them.

In addition, some members of my extended family got wind of my plans thanks to my mother and one of my aunts knows a few landlords who invest in NY, PA, and CT so i am looking to get in touch with them for some potential insight. 

I will keep in touch with this forum and let you all know how it goes.  

I'll send you a colleague request so that we can keep in touch and let you know when something is happening.

Then perhaps it is still a good deal worth pursuing.I like to do things right and it can be hard for me not to touch everything on a project when the market here doesn't always demand that everything is fully updated and renovated.  

@Vijay PrabhakaranLets touch base.

I keep in touch with everyone on my team probably more than I need to.