Div 02 · Capital Planning & Feasibility
A defensible number, before the land is bought or the loan is signed.
The most expensive decision on a project is made before anyone is hired — whether the land is worth building on at the price you are paying for it.
The most expensive decisions on a project are made when the least is known — which land, how much debt, what program, what order. Capital planning is the discipline of making those decisions against a defensible number instead of an optimistic one: an all-in feasibility budget, a phasing plan that matches how money actually arrives, and a written go/no-go before you're committed. We sell no land, place no debt, and earn nothing from the deal closing — which is precisely what makes the number worth having.
Written recommendations within two business days · Nothing to prepare · Mutual NDA from the first conversation
Division
Div 02
Phase
Planning
Issued for
Owner review
Sheet
S-102
The record behind the judgment
$280M+
In capital projects delivered
20 yrs
Design and construction, both sides of the table
Zero
Unplanned outages, live data-center upgrade
Secret
Active U.S. DoD clearance
What capital planning covers
Feasibility starts with the all-in number: land, hard construction, soft costs — design, engineering, permits, fees — financing, carrying costs through approval and construction, and contingency sized to what is still unknown. That number gets set against what the finished asset supports — rents, sale value, or your own use — and tested against the approval timeline, because a parcel that needs entitlements carries a year of interest, taxes, and escalation that a by-right parcel doesn't. Phasing and funding strategy follow: what gets built in what order, what each phase must prove before the next is funded, and how the capital stack — equity, debt, draws — maps onto that sequence.
The deliverable is written: a feasibility budget you can defend to a lender, a phasing plan with decision gates, and a go/no-go recommendation with the numbers attached. You decide; we make sure the decision is made against the project you'd actually build, not the one in the brochure.
Where projects start wrong
The failures are set early and surface late. A budget built backwards from the loan amount instead of forward from the work. A broker's pro forma adopted as the project budget — a sales document doing an engineering document's job. Soft costs and carrying costs compressed into one thin line while they quietly run a fifth or more of the project. A single contingency asked to absorb design risk, site risk, and market risk at once. And the classic: land bought before anyone read the zoning code for the actual parcel or priced the approval timeline, so the feasibility study happens anyway — after closing, at full price. A project that starts with a defensible number can survive bad luck; a project that starts with a hopeful one needs everything to go right.
What we deliberately don't do
Aldermont sells no land, places no debt, and takes no commission or promote tied to the deal closing — deliberately. We are not your broker, your lender, or your equity partner, and we don't do the licensed work either: your A/E designs, your GC builds, your attorney and accountant paper the deal. What we hold is the owner's side of the arithmetic — whether the project in front of you is worth starting, at this price, on this land, on this timeline. Sometimes the most valuable word in the report is no, and we're the one party at the table with nothing to lose by writing it.
Asked about this service
What is a development feasibility study?
A feasibility study answers one question with evidence: should this project happen? It assembles the all-in cost of the finished asset — land, hard costs, soft costs, financing, carrying costs, contingency — sets that against what the asset will support in rent, sale value, or use, and tests both against zoning, site conditions, and the real approval timeline. The deliverable that matters is a written go/no-go with the numbers attached, produced while walking away is still cheap.
What should a project feasibility budget include?
Everything the finished asset costs, not just construction: land and closing costs; hard construction with escalation to the actual build date; soft costs — design, engineering, permits, fees, insurance, legal — which owners chronically underestimate; financing and carrying costs for the real approval-plus-construction timeline, not the hoped-for one; and contingency sized separately for design maturity and site unknowns. A missing line doesn't mean the project skips that cost — it means the project meets it later, unbudgeted.
Do I need a feasibility study before buying land?
Before is the only time it works at full strength. After closing, every problem the site was hiding is yours at whatever it costs to fix; before closing, the same finding is a price reduction or a walk-away. A due-diligence contingency in the purchase contract buys the window to run the studies while the seller waits, and the studies cost thousandths of the mistake they prevent. The most common way owners lose money on land isn't wrong studies — it's studies never run, or an unwelcome answer overridden.
My lender approved the loan — doesn't that mean the project is feasible?
It means the loan is feasible. A lender underwrites to protect the debt, and the analysis stops caring at the point the loan is covered — your equity is the cushion it spends first. A broker's pro forma has a different job again: selling the land. Neither number is built to protect the owner's outcome, which is why the feasibility budget should be built from your side of the table. The $350 project review is a working way to start: bring the parcel and the pro forma, and we'll tell you in writing where we'd push — credited in full against your first invoice if you engage us.
Two ways in
Start where the risk is lowest.
Orientation call · 20 minutes · no fee
Find out whether you need us at all.
Fifteen minutes on your project, five on a straight answer: whether an advisor is worth your money at this stage, what it would take, and what it would cost. No documents, no preparation. If the answer is that you don't need one yet, you'll get that answer too — it's the cheapest thing we can tell you.
Project review · 60 minutes · $350, credited if you engage
Bring the project. Leave with recommendations.
A working session on your actual documents — the parcel you're weighing, the drawing set, the budget, the permit path you can't see through. Written recommendations land within two business days, in your hands to act on with or without us. If you engage us, the fee comes off your first invoice in full.
What to prepare: nothing.
Send whatever is already on your desk — a site address, a PDF set, a bid, a change order, a letter you don't like the tone of. Or send nothing and just talk. Working out which of it actually matters is the job you're hiring, not homework you owe us first.
Related field notes