Redevelopment Opportunities

Some of the best commercial opportunities are existing properties where the land is worth more than what’s built on it. When improvement value drops below a threshold relative to land value, it signals a teardown candidate—the “highest and best use” is something other than the current building. Ploti helps you find these opportunities systematically.

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The Opportunity

Redevelopment analysis helps you:

• Find properties where land value far exceeds improvement value
• Identify vacant commercial land classified as “improved” but essentially undeveloped
• Target underutilized parcels in high-value locations
• Screen large sets of commercial properties for redevelopment potential

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Walkthrough: Finding Underimproved Commercial Parcels

Let’s find commercial properties over 1 acre where the improvement value is less than 25% of land value—classic redevelopment candidates where the land is worth 4x or more than the building.

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Step 1: Write the Research Request

Begin the request by naming the geography you want to search.

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Step 2: Add the Criteria

We asked:

Find commercial parcels over 1 acre where the improvement value is less than 25% of the land value

This query combines:

• Commercial property type (Commercial, Retail, Office Building)
• 1+ acre (meaningful redevelopment size)
• Improvement < 25% of land value (the “underimproved” threshold)

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Step 3: Review the Research Approach

The research run used this analysis approach: Ploti identified:

• 1,214 commercial parcels in the study area
• 291 commercial parcels over 1 acre
• ~34 parcels meeting the underimproved threshold

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Step 4: Review Final Results

Ploti found 34 underimproved commercial parcels totaling over 1,000 acres. 88% of large commercial parcels have improvements worth more than 25% of land value. These 34 properties are the outliers—where the land has become more valuable than what’s on it.

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Step 5: Analyze the Summary

Ploti breaks down results by location and value: Summary statistics:

• Total land value: $40.2 million
• Total improvement value: $3.1 million
• Completely vacant ($0 improvements): 19 parcels
• Minimal improvements (under 25%): 15 parcels

Notable finds:

• 2530 N Hiawassee Rd, Orlando — 66.8 acres, $18.8M land value (only 9.7% improved)
• Tomyn Blvd, Winter Garden — 14.4 acres, $2.5M land value, completely vacant
• 12650 W Colonial Dr, Winter Garden — 4.7 acres, $2.5M land value (only 3% improved)

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Why Improvement-to-Land Ratio Matters

The improvement-to-land ratio is a classic real estate metric for identifying redevelopment candidates: When land value significantly exceeds improvement value, the market is telling you the “highest and best use” is something other than the current building. These are teardown candidates.

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The Manual Workflow This Replaces

Without Ploti, this analysis would require:

1. Obtaining commercial property records from the county
2. Filtering for commercial property types
3. Filtering for parcels over 1 acre
4. Calculating improvement-to-land ratios in Excel
5. Sorting and filtering to find properties below threshold
6. Cross-referencing addresses to understand locations
7. Creating summary statistics by jurisdiction

Ploti preserves the calculations and mapped result together, making the workflow easier to inspect and refine. And because Ploti shows results on a map, you immediately see the spatial patterns—like the concentration of opportunities in Winter Garden and along major corridors.

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Tips

• Properties with 0% improvement value may be parking lots, storage yards, or truly vacant—verify current use
• Factor in demolition costs when analyzing older buildings
• Check for environmental issues on older commercial sites (Phase I recommended)
• Look at recent nearby development to understand achievable density
• Consider why the property is underimproved—there may be access, zoning, or utility issues

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Other Example Prompts

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Completely Vacant Commercial Land

Find commercial parcels over 2 acres with zero improvement value

Targets truly vacant commercial land without any structures.

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Old Buildings on Valuable Land

Find commercial parcels over 1 acre with buildings built before 1970 and land values over $500,000

Combines building age with high land value as redevelopment signals.

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Underbuilt Retail Sites

Find retail parcels over 1 acre where building square footage is under 5,000 sqft

Small buildings on large retail parcels often indicate redevelopment potential.

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High-Value Underimproved

Find commercial parcels where land value exceeds $1 million and improvement value is under $100,000

Targets the highest-value redevelopment opportunities.