At first glance, it may appear that redeveloping an existing site is both easier and cheaper than building from the ground up. The site’s already there, after all, with utilities, pavement, and sometimes even a building shell in place.
In practice, developing existing sites can carry significantly more constraints than a free-standing, ground-up development. That doesn’t make redevelopment the wrong path, often the opposite is true, but it does introduce a different set of challenges and considerations that the development team will need to navigate.
Understanding those tradeoffs early can help developers avoid surprises later in the design and construction process, ultimately saving both time and project cost.
Here are five key factors every developer should consider before deciding which approach is right for their project.
1. Site Constraints: How to work within what’s already there
A significant difference between redevelopment and ground-up development comes down to site constraints.
With a ground-up project, you’re starting with a blank slate. You have much more flexibility to lay out the site, position the building, and design around today’s standards. However, the challenge then becomes site selection and finding the right site for the project. For developers who want to build in a more urban area, site selection will be even more limited and pricing will start to become a bigger challenge.
Redevelopment is very different. You’re working around existing buildings, utilities, and roadways, and there may be historical or environmental constraints such as specimen trees or man-made site features that now need to be preserved and can’t always be relocated. In many cases, redevelopment projects need to remain operational during construction, which requires additional planning for pedestrian safety, traffic flow, and construction phasing. For this reason, redevelopment often requires more coordination throughout the project.
That coordination extends across disciplines, often requiring partnership with other experts to navigate effectively. Architectural, structural, mechanical, and landscape decisions can all affect site layout and design in ways that aren’t immediately clear, and a site already constrained by existing development leaves less room to absorb these additions.
2. Hidden Risks and Unknown Conditions: What you can’t see until you dig
One of the biggest risks with redevelopment is what you can’t see. Even if old construction drawings or as-built plans exist, there’s no guarantee everything was built exactly as shown. Previous owners may have modified utilities or infrastructure over the years without documentation. Subsurface investigations are often more limited with redevelopment projects as compared to Ground-up due to the existing conditions of the site and risks involved with the unknowns.
Once construction begins and crews start removing pavement or excavating soil, those unknowns begin to surface. Existing utilities may not be where they’re expected to be, and older infrastructure may not meet today’s standards.
This is why redevelopment work should begin with a thorough review of existing conditions, and not just an inventory of what sits at the site.
This is doubly true for redevelopment projects that involve a change in use, which can require significant site upgrades (vehicle and pedestrian circulation, utility capacity, drainage, etc.) that go beyond what was anticipated when the site was originally developed.
Without the context of the as-built and existing conditions, project teams can find themselves designing in a bubble or without full knowledge of how their designs will translate after construction begins. These gaps can later manifest as schedule delays and change orders as plans are forced to change to meet site conditions that went undiscovered during the initial due diligence period.
If there’s one lesson worth carrying into the next redevelopment project, it’s to spend more of the upfront budget on due diligence, particularly surveying, subsurface utility engineering (SUE), and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) work, to locate and verify existing utilities. These dollars are almost always cheaper than a change order once construction is underway.
In comparison, ground-up sites, particularly previously undeveloped or wooded sites, generally involve fewer surprises, partially due to the reliability of the readily available mapping and other information provided, and partially due to less risk involved with being more intrusive? with the upfront investigations.
3. Infrastructure, Entitlements, and Permitting: How redevelopment projects have a head start
While redevelopment introduces more unknowns, it also offers several built-in advantages. Existing sites often already have utilities, road access points, and a building foundation or shell in place that can reduce development costs and eliminate some of the challenges associated with infrastructure construction.
Permitting can also be more straightforward. In many communities, improving an existing property is viewed as revitalization, and sometimes existing conditions, although they may not be conforming, are “grandfathered in” or the regulations can be a little more forgiving than those for new construction. Giving an older site a facelift or putting it back into productive use is often received more favorably than developing an entirely new site.
Of course, that largely depends on the use being proposed and the surrounding community. Significant changes to how a property is proposed to be used can still generate public concerns and additional review, and a change in use can also trigger requirements to bring nonconforming site elements up to current standards. It also depends on what master planning the town/county/city has done and how that information has been broadcasted to the public.
Existing utilities and access points are only an advantage if they have the capacity to support the proposed use and function, which is worth confirming before the site goes to design.
4. Customizable vs. Retrofitted: When consistency wins, and why
Many national retailers and franchise developers continue to favor ground-up development for one simple reason: consistency.
Prototype buildings are designed to be built efficiently while maintaining a consistent customer experience and brand identity. Developers want to find a site that fits the prototype instead of redesigning the prototype to fit an existing property.
Redevelopment doesn’t typically offer that customizability. Retrofitting an existing site or building may require compromises to layouts, parking, circulation, or even branding. This is also where the assumption that redevelopment is the cheaper option begins to break down. Fitting a prototype into an existing site often takes more design effort than starting from scratch, and those compromises are far easier to accept when they surface during due diligence as opposed to after a site plan has been submitted.
For developers whose business model depends on standardization, a ground-up project can often be the better long-term investment. Where preservation and uniqueness? are a goal to the end user, redevelopment may prove to be the better choice.
5. Long-Term Value: Two paths that share a similar goal
Both approaches can deliver valuable projects, but they create value in different ways.
Redevelopment allows owners to breathe new life into existing properties while taking advantage of infrastructure that’s already in place. It can reduce upfront infrastructure costs and help revitalize and beautify aging commercial corridors.
Ground-up development offers the opportunity to build according to today’s building codes and construction standards. Newer development could include site improvements, such as strategically designed pavement sections, pervious pavements, low impact development best management practices, more manageable landscaping, underground stormwater basins, updated roofing, mechanical systems, electrical infrastructure, fire protection, and materials that can contribute to long-term value.
Ultimately, the right approach depends on the site’s existing conditions, the developer’s goals, the project budget, and the level of risk they’re willing to accept at the different phases of the project.
In either case, the long-term value of the development is shaped by how well existing conditions were understood at the outset, which is why upfront investment into conceptual site planning, planning and zoning due diligence, land surveying, utility investigation, geotechnical investigations, environmental assessments, and preliminary drainage design, tend to pay for themselves regardless of whether you choose redevelopment or a ground-up approach.
Assessing these factors early allows project teams to make informed decisions before planning begins and positions projects for greater long-term success.
