All Forum Posts by: Scott Choppin

@Sam Cain

What did you end up doing on your deal?

Thanks @Tyler Resnick. Nice to hear how this helps folks.

Thanks @Will F., appreciate the positive feedback.

@Matthieu Benoot

Take a look at my real estate development thread, this will give you a great base of knowledge.

Scott

@Sam Cain

Hi there, sounds like a good time to start your education about becoming a real estate developer, take a look at my real estate development thread, which will give you a fantastic start to what you need to do to move your project forward. 

Just curious, why do you need to buy the storefront? Does your site have street frontage? My instinct is to not wait, unless the store guy will sell now, but a "first right" only says when they sell you have first shot. That could be in 50 years. You don't want to wait, time is you enemy. Denver Metro is exceptionally hot right now (we entitled and sold a major apartment land parcel to Lennar). You want to get going. 

Just find an architect who has small multifamily experience, design your three units, and move ahead, forget the other property, you could be waiting and miss the market.

My thread outlines the development process on a small project similar to yours from your description. Take a look and give us a report on what and how you are doing.

Good luck.

Scott

Design development set for Cedar and explanation of timing of plan production and plan check schedules

Generally, the plans were produced on the following time line:

1. Kick off architect - March 29th

2. Delivery of DD set - March 31st (this is fast, as we had already worked on the design previously to formal start)

3. Deliver of 1st plan check submittal - April 27th

4. Receipt of 1st plan check comments from Building Department - June 13th. These were the last correction sets to be received, we also received as follows:

Planning

Fire

Mechanical

Electrical

Plumbing

LID (Low Impact Development) - water quality control, detention and filtering systems

Grading

Regarding resubmittal after receiving 1st submittal plan check comment, we decided to do a major redesign of the layout of the project. This is not preferable, but much cheaper to do on paper than to make the changes in the field later. Basically, the City of Long Beach was going to require us to install a new fire hydrant within 150 feet of our site, which would require significant underground fire line work in the public right of way (street). Given the smaller size of this project, we felt it best to complete the redesign, which removed the need for the new hydrant. It also accomplished removal of the 2nd floor common area deck and associated handicap lift. These were both able to be removed based on the new design.

We are also coordinating the following separate plan review and comments processes:

Water department review of water system design, including domestic water line, fire sprinkler line and detector check assembly, and public works alley dedication design. The city of Long Beach has a long term master plan that requires dedication of land for sites that connect with alley ways. This dedication is requiresd on both N/S  and E/W alleys, although the amount of the dedicated land area differs depending on which one you to which you connect.

We expect to make our 2nd submittal this week and depending on the city, expect 2nd plan check comments sometime in September. We are hopeful that we can start construction in October of this year.

Cedar developed plans and elevations - final.pdf

One more.....

Interesting article about financing land development deals, with some new structures I have not see before:

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/15-creative-ways-large-real-estate-97822/

Construction Drawing Production Process

On the Cedar project, we are presently in the construction drawing production and plan check phase. This is where we turn the initial design ideas and proposal (schematics) into a more formal design concept (design development or "DD"'s) into the actual building set (construction drawings, "CD"s) that then is submitted to the city plan check process. We have completed schematics, DD's, and CD's, and we have submitted our project to the city for plan check.

The architect and consultant team are in place. On Cedar, because this fits into our UTH (Urban Town Home) rental product offer, we are looking to be as cost efficient as possible in all areas (UTH is dual and multi-generational family, true middle income housing for urban markets), so our consultant team is non-standard and much more cost effective than normal. On larger projects we would normally hire as follows:

Architect

Structural Engineer

MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing) Engineer

Soils Engineer (to review the structural design in the context of the existing soils conditions)

Land Surveyor

Utility consultant (company that helps process utility connection plans and requests with the local electric, water, sewer, and telco/data utility company (you can do this yourself if needed).

Our team on Cedar looks like this:

Architect - architecture, structural, MEP, and civil - all handled in house by one firm

Land Surveyor

Here are the original schematic plans (next week we'll post the design development set):

Hi @Audrey Ezeh

Great question. 

One clarification, the fee study I attached was from an older, larger project. Cedar's costs won't be that much, let's say around 20k per door for fees, or 80k total. The attachments were more to demonstrate format. Also, those fees are paid when you start construction, so you are not at risk on the impact fees.

On the DD costs (which is at risk), they are as follows:

Title report - free

Soils - 3,500

Phase I - 2,000

Architect - around 2-5k, I get it for free based on relationship with architect, we give them tons of work

Market study - 5-10k on this size project, possibly more. We opted on Cedar to NOT do a market study, as we know the market inside out from our other active projects. 

The other studies mentioned are all internal, with data garnered from brokers that we work with, or databases that we subscribe to, such as CoStar.

Hope that helps.