What's Included

Core service areas.

Our Process

How a development advisory engagement works.

Who This Is For

Right for you if…

You're a developer, landowner, or investor who has a site with real potential but a complicated path forward. Maybe entitlements have stalled. Maybe the zoning doesn't obviously support what you want to build. Maybe you've been told "no" by a planning department and need someone who knows how to find a different answer.

We're also the right partner for municipalities that want to proactively activate underutilized parcels and need a strategic framework for evaluating sites and engaging the right development partners.

What's Included

Core service areas.

Our Process

How a municipal engagement works.

Who This Is For

Right for you if…

You're a city, county, or economic development corporation that has sites you want developed and is struggling to attract the right private partners — or isn't sure how to structure the public side of the deal. You may have issued RFPs that generated weak responses, or have projects that stall at the developer engagement stage.

We're also a strong fit for communities that are proactively trying to shape their development pipeline — identifying the right sites, the right product types, and the right developers before an opportunity presents itself.

What's Included

Core service areas.

Our Process

How a deal structuring engagement works.

Who This Is For

Right for you if…

You have a development project that is viable in concept but isn't penciling in its current form. You know there are public incentives available but aren't sure how to access them or how to structure the ask. Or you're entering a public-private partnership negotiation and want to make sure the deal structure is sound before you commit.

We're also the right partner for municipalities and EDCs that are structuring incentive programs and want to make sure the public side of the deal is designed to attract the right developers without leaving community value on the table.

What's Included

Core service areas.

Our Process

How a financial analysis engagement works.

Who This Is For

Right for you if…

You're a developer, investor, or municipality that needs rigorous financial analysis of a development project — either to make a go/no-go decision, to prepare for capital raising, or to support an incentive application. You want a model that will hold up to scrutiny from lenders, equity partners, and public agencies.

We're also a strong fit for projects where previous analysis has produced optimistic numbers and you want an independent, honest read on whether the deal actually works.

Why constrained sites get passed over.

The development business runs on pattern recognition. Developers find a product type that works, identify sites that fit the pattern, and replicate. It's efficient, and for the right market conditions, it's profitable. The problem is that it creates a systematic bias against sites that don't immediately fit the pattern.

A site with a zoning mismatch looks like a problem. A site with an unusual shape looks like a design challenge. A site with a complicated entitlement history looks like risk. And for a developer optimizing for speed and certainty, all of those things are disqualifying — even if the underlying economics are compelling once the obstacles are addressed.

The result is a category of sites that are perpetually undervalued relative to their actual potential. They trade at distressed prices, sit on municipal problem lists, and accumulate carrying costs while the market moves around them. Until someone decides to do the work.

What "doing the work" actually means.

For a zoning-constrained site, doing the work starts with understanding exactly what the code allows — not just the base zoning, but overlays, variances, conditional uses, planned unit development pathways, and any applicable incentive programs. Most zoning codes are more flexible than they appear on the surface. The question is whether you know where to look and how to make a credible case for an alternative approach.

It also means building a real relationship with the planning department before you file anything. City staff know which proposals are serious and which ones aren't. They know which developers have a track record of following through and which ones are fishing for a variance they'll flip to someone else. Showing up with a well-prepared pre-application package, a realistic development program, and a genuine understanding of the community's planning goals changes the dynamic entirely.

The entitlement process is a negotiation. It's a conversation about what the city wants to see happen on a site and what a developer needs the project to look like in order to make it work. The developers who understand that tend to get better outcomes, faster, even on sites that seem impossible at first glance.

The DFW opportunity.

The Dallas–Fort Worth market is full of these sites. Rapid growth has left pockets of underutilized land scattered across mature submarkets. Zoning codes written for a different era of development haven't kept pace with changing demand. Municipalities that are eager for investment don't always know how to signal that to the development community in a way that generates real responses.

For developers and landowners willing to engage seriously with the complexity — and for cities willing to work collaboratively toward creative solutions — there is real value to be unlocked. The sites nobody wants are often the ones worth fighting for.

Why mid-market developers underutilize TIF.

The misconception that TIF is only for mega-projects comes from where it gets media attention — billion-dollar stadium deals, massive mixed-use redevelopments in major cities, the kind of projects that generate political controversy and newspaper headlines. That version of TIF is real, but it's not the whole story.

Municipalities across Texas and the broader Sun Belt are actively looking for ways to use TIF and similar incentive structures to catalyze development in neighborhoods and corridors that the market hasn't reached on its own. They're not waiting for a billion-dollar project. They're trying to make a $15M mixed-use deal work on a site that's been sitting for a decade.

The other misconception is that the process is too complicated to be worth the effort. It is complicated — but that complexity is manageable with the right advisory support. The key is knowing how to structure the ask, how to present the economic case, and how to negotiate terms that work for both the developer and the city.

What makes a good TIF candidate.

Not every project is a good TIF candidate, and not every municipality has the appetite or capacity to administer a TIF district. But the basic eligibility criteria are often met by projects that developers never think to evaluate for TIF.

The core question is whether the project is located in an area that qualifies as a reinvestment zone under state law — typically an area that is underdeveloped, deteriorating, or otherwise not generating the property tax revenue it could. In Texas, the threshold is relatively accessible, and many infill and urban redevelopment sites qualify without difficulty.

Beyond eligibility, the economic case has to hold up: the projected tax increment from the completed project needs to be sufficient to support the reimbursement obligations over the life of the TIF, and the project needs to demonstrate that it wouldn't happen — or wouldn't happen at the same scale or quality — without the public support. That "but for" analysis is the foundation of any serious TIF negotiation.

The right way to approach a TIF conversation.

The worst way to approach a TIF conversation with a municipality is to walk in and ask for money. The best way is to walk in with a clear picture of what the project will do for the community — jobs, tax base, neighborhood activation, housing supply — and a specific, defensible ask that's tied to identifiable public costs the development will generate or offset.

Cities are more receptive to TIF conversations than developers often expect, especially in the current environment where municipalities are actively trying to attract investment. The key is coming in prepared, with a credible financial model and a realistic understanding of what the city can and can't do.

The RFP problem.

The standard municipal RFP process was designed for procurement — buying goods and services at competitive prices. It was not designed to attract private real estate investment, which involves a completely different set of motivations, risk tolerances, and decision criteria.

When a city issues an RFP for a development site, it's asking private developers to make a significant investment of time and resources — feasibility analysis, conceptual design, financial modeling — in exchange for the chance to win a competitive process that may or may not result in a deal. The best developers, who have more opportunities than they can pursue, often skip it entirely. The respondents are often developers who are desperate for deal flow, not the ones the city actually wants.

The alternative is targeted outreach: identifying the specific developers who are actively working in similar markets, have the right product experience, and have demonstrated the ability to execute — and approaching them directly with a well-prepared opportunity package that answers the questions they'll ask before they agree to spend time evaluating a site.

What developers actually need to see.

Before a credible developer will spend real time evaluating a municipal development opportunity, they need to know: that the site is actually buildable given current zoning and infrastructure; that the city is genuinely committed to getting a project done and has the political support to follow through; that there's a realistic incentive structure that addresses the project's financing gap; and that the community's goals for the site are compatible with a project that pencils financially.

Most municipal solicitations answer none of those questions clearly. They describe what the city wants without addressing what the developer needs. Flipping that orientation — leading with the developer's perspective before asking for anything — is the single biggest change most municipalities could make to improve their development outcomes.

The inputs are not fixed.

Zoning can be changed. Not easily, and not always, but often more readily than developers assume — especially when a proposed project aligns with a municipality's comprehensive plan goals, addresses a demonstrated market need, and comes with a credible development team and realistic financial projections. A site that is currently zoned for a use that doesn't reflect market demand may be rezoned through a variance, a conditional use permit, a PUD, or an outright rezoning request.

The same is true for density. Height limits, setback requirements, parking minimums, and lot coverage restrictions are often adjustable through the entitlement process — particularly in jurisdictions that are actively trying to encourage infill development or increase housing supply. The developer who accepts the current standards as fixed and designs around them will consistently build less valuable projects than the developer who engages with the planning process to establish what's actually possible.

HBU as strategic positioning.

Framed this way, the highest and best use determination becomes a strategic question, not just an analytical one. The right question isn't "what is the best use under current zoning?" It's "what is the best use we can get approved, and what does it take to get there?"

Answering that question well requires understanding the municipality's goals for the area, the community's concerns about new development, the specific flexibility available in the zoning code, and the political dynamics around land use decisions in that jurisdiction. It requires a realistic assessment of what a planning commission or city council will approve, not just what the applicant would prefer to build.

It also requires financial modeling that tests multiple scenarios — not just the base case under current zoning, but the financial implications of different use mixes, densities, and development programs. Sometimes the highest value use under current zoning is also the right answer. Often it isn't. And the only way to know is to do the work.