Both of these assets get valued for what they are expected to become. A tract gets carried at its eventual highest and best use before the entitlements, utilities or roads exist to support it. A mixed-use building gets broken into components and each component priced at the top of its own market, as though the retail podium were a prime retail strip and the office floors were a standalone tower. Neither is what a buyer would pay on January 1.
Highest and best use assumed ahead of entitlement
A site is worth its future use only when that use is actually achievable. Zoning not yet in place, utilities not yet extended, platting not yet approved and access not yet built are all facts that a buyer would price in and a mass appraisal model frequently does not.
Absorption and carrying time left out
A large tract or a multi-phase project does not sell in a single transaction at retail pricing. It sells over time, and the holding costs, taxes and discount over that absorption period belong in the value. Pricing the whole site at finished-lot or per-acre retail skips that step.
Component values summed at each component’s best market
Mixed-use works because the parts share a site, not because each part performs like a best-in-class standalone. Ground-floor retail on secondary frontage, structured parking that serves the project rather than the public, and residential above an active use all carry discounts the model may not apply.
Vacant and un-leased space carried as income-producing
Pads that haven’t been sold, ground-floor bays that haven’t leased and phases that haven’t broken ground produce no income. If they are in the income model at stabilized rates, the value is measuring a project that doesn’t exist yet.
We review the entitlement status, site constraints, development budget and absorption assumptions against the district’s model, request the district’s own evidence, and file the protest inside the statutory window. Most cases settle at the informal stage. If they don’t, we present the case at the Appraisal Review Board (ARB) hearing, and if the board’s value is still too high, the appeal continues in district court or binding arbitration through Estes & Banks, P.C.
