Practice on Real Deals

Harlow Station: A Four-Parcel Assemblage Under an Entitlement Contingency

You are an acquisitions analyst at Wrenfield Development Group, LLC, a regional developer under contract to assemble four adjacent parcels along Harlow Avenue in Deacon's Mill, PA into a single 4.00-acre development site for a proposed mixed-use project, Harlow Station. Wrenfield executed separate Purchase and Sale Agreements with four unrelated sellers on July 15, 2026 - the Kowalczyk family, Deacon's Mill Hardware Co., Redline Self-Storage Holdings, LLC, and Grace Fellowship Church - each priced independently, but every PSA is cross-conditioned on the other three closing on the same date and on Wrenfield obtaining final, non-appealable approval of a pending rezoning petition before the Deacon's Mill Borough Council. If any single seller walks away, the entire assemblage - and the entitlement application built around the full 4.00-acre footprint - collapses. In September 2026, with the rezoning hearing on the calendar for November 12 and the other three sellers already committed, Redline Self-Storage Holdings, LLC - whose parcel is the only one of the four with the Route 9 road frontage the zoning code requires for the project's main access point - notified Wrenfield that it will not proceed to closing unless its contract price is increased by $350,000. Your managing director wants to know exactly what this assemblage costs on a blended, apples-to-apples basis before and after the renegotiation, what actually happens to the other three contracts if Redline walks away entirely, and whether the numbers still make sense against an independent appraiser's opinion of the site's as-is and as-entitled value. Work through the acquisition summary, the developer's entitlement memo, and the appraiser's value opinion to answer these questions.

~20 min

The Kesler Building: Floor-Plate Feasibility for an Office-to-Residential Conversion

You are an underwriting associate at Cascade Bridge Capital, a regional balance-sheet lender evaluating a construction-to-permanent loan request from Kesler Reuse Partners, LLC. The sponsor has a signed contract to buy The Kesler Building, an 11-story, 72%-vacant 1978 office tower at 720 Ridgeway Avenue in Bellweather, OH, for $13,500,000 (expiring November 30, 2026), and plans to convert Floors 2 through 11 into 180 market-rate apartments while Floor 1 remains retail and lobby space. Before you can recommend the deal for the November 12, 2026 credit committee meeting, you need to independently test three of the sponsor's assumptions: whether the building's floor plate can physically deliver the 180 units the sponsor is underwriting to, given the depth of the floor plate and the code's natural-light rule for bedrooms; whether the resulting cost per unit is genuinely competitive with new construction in the submarket; and how much the city's adaptive reuse property tax abatement is actually worth to the deal's stabilized cash flow — since your credit memo has to show whether the proposed permanent loan clears its minimum DSCR covenant using the abated tax expense.

~25 min

Ashford Commons Outparcel: Ground Lease Negotiation for a Retail Pad Site

Talon Family Holdings, LLC has owned a 1.10-acre outparcel at the entrance to Ashford Commons, a well-trafficked shopping center in Millhaven, GA, for three generations. Rather than sell the land outright, the Talon family has decided to explore a long-term ground lease that would let them retain ownership of the underlying land indefinitely while a developer builds and operates a net-lease retail building on top of it. Cardinal Pad Partners, LLC, a regional net-lease developer, has lined up Blaze & Barrel Burgers, Inc. — a corporate-guaranteed quick-service restaurant chain — to occupy an approximately 2,800 SF build-to-suit restaurant with double drive-thru lanes on the site, and has delivered a non-binding term sheet proposing the ground lease's initial rent, escalation structure, and a request that Talon subordinate its fee interest to Cardinal's construction financing. Talon has retained Ferris & Cole Valuation Group to appraise the land and has reviewed Solstice Retail Advisors' offering memorandum, which surveys comparable regional ground lease transactions. Before responding to Cardinal, Talon's advisors need to benchmark the proposed rent against land value, stress-test the escalation schedule against long-term inflation, and decide how to respond to the subordination request and the developer's unilateral, non-resetting renewal options — all while keeping the numbers across every document internally consistent.

~22 min

Brownfield Retail Redevelopment Remediation Holdback

You are a credit analyst at Cornerstone Bridge Capital, a regional bridge and construction lender evaluating a financing request from Meridian Retail Redevelopment Partners, LLC to acquire and redevelop the former Ironclad Metal Stamping Works, a 14.0-acre industrial site at 1400 Foundry Row in Rockville Junction that operated as a metal stamping and parts-degreasing facility from 1962 to 2009. Meridian is under contract to buy the site from Ironclad Holdings, LLC for $6,200,000 and plans to redevelop it into Foundry Row Marketplace, a 68,000-square-foot grocery-anchored retail center. A Phase I Environmental Site Assessment completed March 4, 2026 flagged historical solvent use as a Recognized Environmental Condition, and the follow-up Phase II ESA completed June 12, 2026 confirmed soil contamination near the site's former degreasing pad, with an estimated total remediation cost ranging from $850,000 (a soil-only remedy) to $2,100,000 (soil excavation plus groundwater treatment), depending on results still pending from confirmatory groundwater monitoring that will not be complete until after closing. Because the final remediation cost cannot be known before closing, Meridian and Ironclad have negotiated a $1,750,000 purchase-price escrow holdback that trues up against the actual remediation cost, and Meridian is also weighing whether to buy a Pollution Legal Liability insurance policy to cap its downside. Before Cornerstone can issue final loan approval, you need to work through what the deal actually nets Ironclad and costs Meridian under both the low-cost and high-cost remediation outcomes, whether the state brownfield tax credit meaningfully offsets Meridian's exposure, and whether the redevelopment still clears Cornerstone's minimum underwriting return in the worst case.

~28 min

Build-to-Rent Forward Purchase: Phased Takedown & Blended Yield-on-Cost

You are an acquisitions and asset management associate at Meridian Residential Partners, an institutional investor in build-to-rent (BTR) single-family rental communities. In March 2025, Meridian entered into a Forward Purchase Agreement (FPA) with Brightland Homes, LLC to acquire Foxglove Meadows, a 120-home BTR community under construction in Conroe, Texas (Houston MSA). Rather than taking down all 120 homes at once, the FPA structures the acquisition in three phases of 40 homes each, with Meridian paying a separate, pre-negotiated price per home as each phase reaches certificate-of-occupancy (CO) and is turned over rent-ready. Phase 1 and Phase 2 have already closed and are leasing; Phase 3 is still under construction and has not yet been taken down. It is now September 1, 2026. Meridian's investment committee has asked you to true up the underwriting: confirm Phase 1's actual trailing-12-month performance, build pro forma stabilized operating statements for Phase 2 (recently stabilized) and Phase 3 (not yet delivered) using the assumptions in the deal file, and calculate a blended stabilized yield-on-cost across all three phases to determine whether the community — once Phase 3 delivers and stabilizes in mid-2027 — clears Meridian's 4.85% minimum underwriting threshold for BTR forward-purchase deals. You also need to be able to explain to the committee how the phased takedown structure affects the community's overall stabilization timeline and where the remaining rent-growth risk sits.

~28 min

Construction Loan Distress at Fenwick Crossing Distribution Center

You are a credit officer in the Special Assets / Construction Lending group at Anchor Peak Bank, N.A. In March 2025, the bank closed a $29,400,000 construction loan to Fenwick Crossing Industrial JV, LLC, an entity controlled by sponsor Kestrel Development Group, LLC, to fund ground-up construction of Fenwick Crossing Distribution Center, a 285,000-square-foot speculative (non-pre-leased) industrial building in Weatherby County, Texas. Eighteen months later, the project is running badly behind: general contractor Ferrous Construction Co. is now forecasting an eight-month schedule slip and a materially higher cost to complete, driven by steel price escalation, unforeseen foundation remediation, and extended general conditions, and the loan's interest reserve is down to its final weeks of runway. Kestrel's principal, Marcus Delacroix, has asked the bank to fund the overrun and extend the loan. The bank's construction consultant has just delivered an updated status report and cost-to-complete reforecast, and the file has been escalated to you to decide the bank's next move before the interest reserve runs dry. Review the construction status report, the original loan term sheet's completion guaranty and cost-overrun provisions, and the updated appraisal, then size the overrun, calculate how much runway the interest reserve has left, and recommend whether Anchor Peak should fund the overrun request, call Delacroix's completion guaranty, or force the deal into a structured workout.

~28 min

Cordova Crossing: Residual Land Value for a Self-Storage Development

You are the Director of Development at Cordova Development Partners, LLC, evaluating a 3.4-acre infill parcel at 4400 Cordova Parkway in Brightwater, TX for a ground-up, climate-controlled self-storage facility to be branded StorHouse Self Storage at Cordova Crossing. The site is owned by the Whitfield Family Trust, which has listed the parcel for sale through Meridian Point Commercial Realty at $2,150,000 -- well above the $1,650,000 value concluded by Ridgeline Valuation Group's land appraisal, which relies on general C-2 commercial land comparables (retail pads, flex/industrial, one self-storage sale) rather than this specific development's economics. Your investment committee requires a minimum developer profit of 15.0% of total (non-land) development cost before committing capital to any ground-up self-storage project. Using the development pro forma's projected stabilized NOI and cap rate, the total non-land development cost budget, and Trailhead Bank & Trust's indicative construction-and-land-acquisition loan term sheet, you need to determine the maximum price the site can support under your firm's return requirements, confirm whether paying that price still clears an acceptable yield-on-cost, size the resulting construction loan, and decide how to respond to the gap between the seller's asking price and what the deal can actually support.

~22 min

Office-to-Life-Science Conversion

You are underwriting a debt fund bridge loan for Meridian Office Park, a 90,000-square-foot Class B office building in Watertown, Massachusetts that the sponsor plans to convert into first-generation life-science lab space. Because the building currently produces little stabilized income and requires heavy, phased capital investment before any lab tenant can move in, the deal is structured as a transitional debt fund bridge loan rather than a bank or agency loan. Review the conversion budget, the submarket market study, and the proposed loan term sheet, then work through the underwriting decisions below.

~22 min

The Foundry at Cordwell: An Opportunity Zone Ground-Up Development

It is September 1, 2026. Elena Marsh, a semi-retired biotech executive, sold a concentrated stock position on April 10, 2026, realizing a $1,000,000 long-term capital gain. Her tax advisor has flagged that a Qualified Opportunity Fund (QOF) investment could let her defer federal tax on that gain and, if held long enough, permanently exclude any appreciation earned inside the fund. Her advisor has introduced her to Cordwell District QOZ Fund I, LLC, a newly formed QOF sponsored by Anchorline Development Partners, LLC (a regional developer with 12 prior completed projects and roughly $410 million in total capitalization). The Fund's sole planned investment is The Foundry at Cordwell, a ground-up 180-unit mixed-use multifamily project with 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, to be built on a vacant parcel at 100 Foundry Street in Millbrace, Ohio — a federally designated Qualified Opportunity Zone tract (Ohio Census Tract 39-153-0112). Elena is being asked to commit the full $1,000,000 of her gain as a limited partner. She has three weeks before her advisor needs an answer, and the Fund's Offering Memorandum, LP Term Sheet, and an environmental due-diligence summary on an adjacent parcel the Fund is separately evaluating have all landed on her desk. She needs to work through the reinvestment deadline, the mechanics that would apply if the Fund pivots to acquiring existing property next door, and — most importantly — whether the underlying real estate actually pencils, independent of the tax treatment wrapped around it.

~23 min

The Marlowe at Ashcombe: Construction-to-Permanent Financing for a 350-Bed Student Housing Development

Bellwood Campus Partners LLC, a regional student housing developer, is seeking construction-to-permanent financing for The Marlowe at Ashcombe, a ground-up, 350-bed / 105-unit purpose-built off-campus student housing community located directly across from the main gate of Ashcombe State University (enrollment approximately 34,200). The project sits on a 6.4-acre site and will operate under an individual-lease-by-the-bed model, with construction slated to begin in September 2025 and reach substantial completion in May 2027, ahead of a planned Fall 2027 first move-in. Bellwood has approached Cornerstone Capital Bank, which has issued an indicative term sheet for a single construction-to-permanent facility: a floating-rate construction loan that converts in place to a fixed-rate mini-perm loan once the project is complete and a minimum pre-leasing covenant is satisfied. You are the credit analyst assigned to underwrite the request. Using the Sponsor's Offering Memorandum, Cornerstone's term sheet, and a leasing status report pulled 31 days before the loan's pre-leasing covenant test date, you must size the projected stabilized value, test the requested construction loan against the lender's maximum loan-to-cost constraint, and judge whether the project's current leasing pace is adequate to support conversion to the permanent loan without additional lender protections.

~22 min

Ground-Up Industrial/Logistics Development

You are an originator at a debt fund evaluating a request to size and confirm financing for a speculative, ground-up industrial development. The sponsor, Meridian Point Development, has already lined up a full capital stack — senior construction debt, a mezzanine tranche, and JV equity from an institutional partner — and needs your underwriting sign-off before the deal is finalized. You'll review the development budget/pro forma, the capital stack term sheet, and the appraisal, then work through the numbers a lender would check before committing.

~25 min

Helix Point Lab I: Underwriting a Speculative Wet-Lab Development in a Secondary Cluster

Meridian Life Sciences Partners is developing Helix Point Lab I, a 120,000 RSF speculative (non-pre-leased) wet-lab building in the Innovation Quarter submarket of Worcester, Massachusetts — a secondary life-sciences cluster roughly 45 miles west of the Cambridge/Boston core, anchored by UMass Chan Medical School, MassBiologics, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. No anchor tenant is signed. The sponsor is betting that overflow demand from priced-out Cambridge/Boston tenants and continued biotech capital formation will absorb the space, even though submarket lab vacancy is currently elevated following the 2022–2024 life-science construction wave. Beacon Commercial Bank has issued an indicative term sheet for a $50,400,000 speculative construction loan, and an independent appraisal firm has delivered a market study grounding rent and cap rate assumptions. You will underwrite the deal: build the stabilized pro forma, test the development economics (yield-on-cost vs. market cap rate), and judge whether the proposed loan structure and risk mitigants are appropriate given the lease-up risk inherent in spec lab construction.

~22 min

Mixed-Use Development with Preferred Equity

You are underwriting financing for Harbor & Main, a mixed-use development combining a 220-unit multifamily tower over an 18,000 SF ground-floor retail podium. The sponsor has capitalized the deal with a senior construction loan, a preferred equity tranche from an institutional investor, and common sponsor/LP equity. You'll review the sources-and-uses budget, the preferred equity term summary, and an excerpt from the anchor retail lease, then work through how the pieces fit together and what could go wrong.

~25 min