Author: Tech3

Right Purpose, Right Place, Right Time

Park Impact Fees are charged by a municipality when a residential developer pulls a construction permit. For every single family residence, a developer is required to dedicate land of up to 2000 square feet of park space. If they can’t reach that goal, they can pay a park impact fee so the municipality can later buy land for a park. In addition, Park Improvement Fees for each residential unit are required for building playgrounds, pools or other recreational improvements.

Over time a municipality can build up Park Impact and Improvement fees. Fast growing communities often collect significant fees which go unused for a long time. A municipality has to find the time to invest in the process of identifying, buying and building a park. In addition, the state requires that the fees be used within 10 years of collection, so municipalities are under pressure to act.

If you find yourself in the position of needing to identify land for parks (or other municipal needs such as water towers, retention ponds, detention ponds, etc.), be sure to find a consultant who has expertise in both real estate AND municipal planning. Consider the following projects:

School/Park Project: We identified a school site adjacent to a park site and was able to leverage the park impact and improvement fees to pay for the park and the playground equipment. The park served the community and the school, so the combined approach benefitted both beneficiaries.

Abundance of Park Fees: We created a process for a municipality that outlined how to budget over time for a critical acquisition of land and time a grant request to coincide with the purchase of a parcel of land. This helped them to combine funding vehicles. We then identified the best parcels of land to fit community needs and negotiated the purchase price so the resulting land added real value to the community at the best possible price.

Bridging Planning and Real Estate

As real estate professionals who are not driven by commission, we can identify possible real estate parcels and consider each option with a strong understanding of the community’s Comprehensive Plan and Vision.

We have a background in municipal planning, including budgets, grants and zoning. Using this knowledge, we can determine park radiuses and we can tell you where to put a park so it meets community objectives at the same time that it meets your financial objectives.

For parks and other municipal land needs, you need to consider the right purpose, the right place and the right time. This requires expertise in planning AND real estate. Contact TP3 and get the best of both worlds.

Get a new handle on decisionmaking. Today Economic Impact Analysis can help stakeholders better understand the local or regional changes in economic activity that result from a project or event–well before they happen. Over the last several years TP³has adopted of Economic Impact Analysis as a tool, and augmented it with more detailed data to look beyond tax base data to illuminate the link between economics and real estate decisionmaking.

Relevant inputs + new tools = more complete picture. By using project-specific inputs and a variety of other economic multiplier data, mapping, and real estate tools, the TP³ team can paint a more complete picture that includes ripple effects such as:

• Addition of new temporary and permanent jobs
• Additional spending at support businesses and services
• Wage impacts
• Additional visitor traffic and spending
• Other value-added economic output at community, state or regional levels

Dynamic data tells a story. Economic Impact estimates can help tell a larger story about a project or company and how it fits within the broader community. This type of data has also been used to underscore the unexpected ways that businesses and industries within a region/state work together.

TP³ can perform an Economic Impact Analysis as a standalone work product, or as complementary to other services.

What are the right decisions? It has been 63 years since the first enclosed mall opened in Minnesota. But in recent years many of the Midwest’s malls–even Wisconsin’s Bayshore Mall which became Glendale’s “Town Center” during its rebirth in the north Milwaukee suburb–have seen their share of struggles. Having turned itself ‘inside out” in the past decade by adding a plethora of new outdoor access storefronts, cafes, and pedestrian-oriented outdoor spaces, the Glendale mall’s manager last year proposed yet another vacancy-induced overhaul for the site.

Similar struggles plague many communities. A few are repurposing their malls into new uses altogether, becoming tech hubs, offices, libraries, church auditoriums or medical centers. Efforts to revive downtown urban malls such as Milwaukee’s Grand Avenue Mall with mixed-use redevelopment are moving forward with City financing. Others are turning themselves inside out and creating more European-style outdoor spaces. Representatives of malls like Bayshore, Mayfair, Janesville Mall and Hilldale Mall in Wisconsin and Muncie Mall in Indiana are asking, “What are the right decisions to make now, for the future? How can we look at impacts before we rebuild?”

Are shopping malls dying out…or are they ripe for creative reinvestment? According to some experts, they are just in transition. Here in the Midwest, malls have been on the cutting edge of the shopping destination evolution since the advent of the Mall of America–adding more attractions and features and making shopping almost secondary. Today we are seeing the bar raised even higher. With shopping online now ubiquitous, a relatively steady pre-COVID-19 regional mall vanancy rate of 9.3% in the U.S. now rising sharply throughout 2020, and a changing demographic coming into their own, younger consumers have demonstrated their priorities lie firmly with experiences rather than on material things. The result: malls anchored not by the big box but by things like bowling alleys, fitness centers, brew pubs, move theaters, indoor skiing, or rock climbing experiences.

TP³ has the tool set needed to understand, re-imagine and reinvigorate those places. Working with real estate and redevelopment in communities that include many of the Midwest’s beleaguered shopping centers and malls, TP³ is keeping its eye on this growing real estate opportunity–and devising ways to match mall redevelopment with current and future economic trends. We can help local and regional communities and property owners get a realistic snapshot of the potential, examine future economic impacts of various use scenarios, and create a viable opportunity that transforms existing assets into new and more sustainable uses for the changing economy of the foreseeable future.

Our approach to repositioning excess land assets adds deep and lasting value for corporations and their communities.

Working with corporations throughout the Midwest, TP³ has developed an in-depth approach to the physical and economic revitalization of excess corporate land. We bring a full understanding of real estate dynamics, strategies, emerging market opportunities, and city rebuilding.

The approach adds value:

• To the company’s bottom line
• To the community with positive and lasting project impact

Here are several case studies that show this advantage at work.

• John Deere – former manufacturing facilities and land in Moline, IL and Waterloo, IA
• Rockwell International – property in Allegan, MI
• Rayovac/Spectrum Brands – properties in Madison, WI and Bridgeport, CT