Leotta Location & Design
Progressing only the highest quality sites toward market-ready status.
Through the SSI Program, LL+D identifies the highest quality raw land sites and conducts rigorous engineering and environmental screening to advance only the most competitive sites to market. Each of the five SSI Program phases is informed by proven site selection and economic development competitiveness standards and best practices.
Site Discovery
identifies never before found sites and affirms only the highest quality properties on the market. Whereas conventional site certification programs of various incarnations across the country evaluate properties that are already on the market regardless of suitability, SSI Site Discovery constitutes a mining exercise in which previously unknown sites of exceptional quality for industrial and commercial projects are discovered.
Preliminary Due Diligence
is designed to expose any potential “fatal flaws” that would compromise site competitiveness. Phase II entails a desktop engineering and environmental site review to confirm initial site development potential from Phase I discovery. This includes a qualitative review of physical site characteristics, ecological conditions, transportation and utility connectivity, and surrounding land use compatibility along with rough-order-of-magnitude costs for site improvements and environmental permitting burden including potential wetlands mitigation.
Advancement to Market
constitutes pursuit of a real estate purchase option at a fair market value price. SSI Phase III commences upon a site achieving a favorable development opinion from Phase II and is a necessary step in graduating a site to the open real estate market in a development-ready capacity by stimulating landowner interest through education, outreach, and relationship building.
Formal Due Diligence
takes site investigation from an engineering and environmental review exercise to a full “boots on the ground”, quantitative physical site survey and documentation. Phase IV is administered judiciously with only select sites qualifying as candidates for formal due diligence. Sites that merit this level of investigation typically are suited for large-scale capital investments, which require quantification of site development advantages and risks.
Branding and Marketing
is necessary to activate the SSI Program investment by creating a comprehensive informational package to globally promote the location value to target industries. Phase V should be activated immediately prior to the successful completion of Phase III and graduation of a site to market, where resources include compelling visual documentation of the subject site along with quantifiable development advantages of both the site and the host community.
SSI Identified Sites
Heavy Industrial
Light Industrial
Distribution/Freight Logistics
Core Suitability Modeling (CSM) is a land use and logistics-driven GIS analysis tool enabling the site search efficiency unique to the SSI Program. A suite of eight core models provide the versatility to analyze location suitability for a diverse set of industry sectors. Each core model is defined by a project land use and includes up to four transportation scenarios. This allows strategic site searches to be customized for each community to align with transportation assets and viable target industries. Objective and a-political, Core Suitability Modeling defines site quality through a complex set of industrial and commercial location competitiveness factors.
CSMs suggest optimal locations for facility permitting, construction, and operation while protecting sensitive environmental, ecological, and cultural resources. Informed by 20+ years of industrial site selection experience, industry sector models are built on multi-disciplined engineering and environmental regulatory compliance expertise. The highly technical and data-driven nature of SSI Core Suitability Modeling results in a high site due diligence survival rate.
