From the outside, development can look simple:
Find a site. Build something. Lease it. Sell it.
The reality is very different.

Finding the site may actually be the easiest part.
Then comes site control, LOI negotiations, underwriting, zoning, environmental due diligence, title, survey, engineering, entitlements, public hearings, construction documents, financing, permitting, contractor selection and eventually construction.

And somewhere in between, you'll probably:
• Re-underwrite the deal multiple times • Wait months for municipal comments • Discover an easement or restriction that changes the site plan • Respond to comments that weren't in the first review • Defend the project at a public hearing • Manage rising construction costs and long-lead items • Negotiate changes without compromising the economics • Continuously ask one important question:

Does this deal still make sense?
Then, after roughly 53 steps…

You finally start construction.
That's the part everyone sees.

- But the building itself isn't the business of development.
- The business is managing risk.
- Capital risk. Entitlement risk. Construction risk. - Financing risk. Timing risk. Market risk.

Great developers aren't simply people who build buildings. They're people who successfully manage hundreds of interconnected decisions from site selection to stabilization and exit.
The finished building is the visible product.
Execution is where the value is created.

I put together the 58-Step Commercial Real Estate Development Roadmap breaking down the process from finding the site through construction and stabilization.