Pre- Development

Company Profile / Services:

Autopilot maintains over 35 years of experience in real estate development, design management, and construction administration for over 450 automotive sales and service facilities across the country. We offer a full array of development services including but not limited to:

Potential development or relocation site analysis (including redevelopment opportunities usually not known to the real estate brokerage community).
Solicitation of potential municipal or agency development incentives.
Creation of or confirmation that the development program or manufacturer facility requirements are in sync with your actual needs.
Creation of conceptual plan exhibits to define and confirm the facility, adaptive reuse or expansion requirements.
Preparation of a project financial proforma detailing projected construction costs, soft costs, and ancillary FF&E allowances. This assessment allows one to define anticipated equity requirements, investment return and equally important facility rent factor to help you establish the bottom line. This is also a great aid while assessing ROI options for long range planning, exit strategies, or sale/lease back opportunities.
Property search and discovery procedures that specifically focus on the diverse challenges of an auto dealership:
- Location & Visibility
- Customer convenience
- Service & Parts Access
- Signage & Display
- Infrastructure
- Development incentives
- Property Entitlements

These aspects are clearly beyond the knowledge level of the general real estate brokerage, design, and construction communities. Autopilot maintains the experience and dealership business insight, "inside and outside the box", to guide you in development of the most responsive, attractive and cost-effective facility to meet your current and future business model

Autopilot Pre-Development Approach:

Establish the development program based on Factory MFS and actual facility needs including expansion options.

Define budget constrains for Land & Facility (including soft costs).
Explore development or redevelopment options:
- New ground up facility
- RE-image / remodel
- Horizontal expansion
- Vertical expansion
- Relocation options
- Adaptive reuse
Facility design concepts:
- Site concept
- Functional concept plans
- Exterior shell / structure concepts
Project budget projection / financial proforma
- Hard costs
  - Land
  - Infrastructure
  - Construction
- Soft costs
  - A&E fees
  - FF&E
  - Comm., AV & IT systems
  - Interest
  - PM fees
  - Municipal development costs
- Equity Assessment
  - Equity contribution
  - Rent Factor
  - ROI
  - Cash flow
  - Equity enhancement

Autopilot enables the dealer to establish design and building constraints for the design and construction team based on your actual current and future facility needs and the rent factor you can support as well as afford.

Development Approach (Traditional):

Decision to stay on existing site or relocate:

Emotional decision (family holding)
Perceived good deal or bargain
Intuition, not necessarily based on sound market input
Municipal constraints based on "old school" perception vs. new "retail" facility amenities.
Facility program based on input from inexperienced design and/or construction resources or folks who base their fees on a percentage of the project budget, the more to spend the more they make.
Facility design based on an over aggressive facility program, undefined project budget, unrestricted material / finish standards, and limitations of the design and/or construction team to define and control a construction budget specifically for an automotive sales and service facility.