An independent Commercial Land Highest & Best Use Study evaluating a 8.343-acre commercial assemblage in Eustis, Florida.
EUSTIS, Florida — Wert-Berater, Inc., an independent feasibility study consulting firm serving lenders and government agencies since 1998, has completed a Commercial Land Highest & Best Use Study in Eustis, Lake County, Florida.
Wert-Berater served as independent feasibility consultant to the ownership and its advisors. Party names are withheld consistent with the confidential nature of underwriting and capital-advisory work; figures represent the project as evaluated at the study date.
Highest and best use analysis of an 8.343-acre, 363,429-square-foot commercial assemblage fronting N State Road 19 in Eustis, Lake County — a site whose developable footprint is defined by its constraints: 6.054 upland acres suitable for development, two wetland areas totaling approximately 2.3 acres (1.869 and 0.420 acres), and a portion lying within FEMA Flood Zone AE, producing a net buildable envelope estimated at 4.5 to 4.8 acres, or roughly 195,000 square feet after parking and stormwater requirements.
Each candidate use — medical office, flex space, bank branch, self-storage, urgent care, grocery, and combinations — was run through discounted cash flow modeling with residual land value calculation, terminal value discounting, entrepreneurial profit expectations, and submarket rent evidence averaging approximately $24.70 per square foot. Medical office and flex space emerged as the strongest single uses, bank branches as stabilizers, storage and urgent care as feasible but lower-productivity, and grocery as unsupportable on residual land value as a primary format.
Twenty single-use scenarios were costed in the feasibility ranking table at total costs of $5,550,000 to $7,550,000 — the highest and best use emerging not from any one of them but from the phased mixed program: Phase 1 delivers the flex space and bank pad for early income and equity recycling at roughly 65% loan-to-cost with a 1.30x DSCR sizing constraint, and Phase 2 delivers the medical office once tenants are secured. Each scenario carried site acquisition, preparation, hard and soft costs, and a twelve percent entrepreneurial profit, so the residual land values compare on a consistent, financeable basis.
Constrained-site HBU work is subtraction before addition: wetlands and the Zone AE floodplain had to be carved out and stormwater compliance engineered before any program could be sized, and only a subset of uses that achieve positive residual land value also produce returns above market expectations — the study’s ranking framework was built to find that intersection. The conclusion is a defensible, supported program identification rather than a single-use bet.
Wert-Berater, Inc. is an independent feasibility study consulting firm founded in 1998, providing lender- and agency-facing feasibility studies, highest-and-best-use analyses, and capital-advisory support. The firm has completed more than 4,000 engagements across all 50 states and internationally, evaluating over $40.2 billion in project value for SBA, USDA, EB-5, conventional, and institutional financing decisions. In every engagement, fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the applicable agency.
Media contact: Donald Safranek, MSc, President, Wert-Berater, Inc. — +1 310-857-2443 ext. 800. Press inquiries only; client, lender, and property identities remain confidential.
President, Wert-Berater, Inc. — independent feasibility study consultants since 1998. More than 4,000 feasibility studies completed across all 50 states and internationally, evaluating $40.2 billion in project value for SBA, USDA, EB-5, conventional, and institutional financing decisions. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and agency in every engagement.
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