First CRE deal. Best way to own(as landlord) and hold during lease? Using separate Land Development/Contracting Company to add value to my CRE?
I have been tapped to procure and lease property for a large corp inside my industry looking to establish a new location with long term (10-20yr) NNN lease. The general course of action with their other locations are take a piece of usually undeveloped land, establish NNN lease with owner, build to their liking and finally purchase at the close of lease date.  

My questions:

1. Holding the property during Lease

 - Is their a preferred vehicle (personal, S Corp, LLC, other) to own and hold this property during the lease period?  I will not be financing.  I am speaking to a qualified accountant but wanted to ask those with CRE experience.


2.Adding value  

I am finalizing offers on the required acreage which is totally undeveloped(think farm field).   Given that i have background in construction and have access to Heavy Eq fleet w/ operators, I was considering the creation of a development company to bill for dirt work.  I can of course hire this work but time constraints and start of the building season have dried up availability.  Could i essentially bill myself for development, and show added value to the property?  
[{"id": "dg7fv7q", "text": "Why don't you let the big boys take care of this big development instead of yourself before you fuck your self and your client over. Tough.....but true. This is the majors and you're not even out of T-ball yet. \n\nYou have a background in construction? You're not even asking the right questions.. how big does this industrial space need to be? How many truck docks? Overhead doors? Office space? Parks? Storage? Ceiling clear? Power? Generators? HVAC? I saw No questions about environmentals, surveys. Is the land you want to acquire even zoned properly? If not - do you know the steps required and who to talk to to get it rezoned? If it's industrial - are there two different access routes to get to the site? How are the financials look? Does new construction costs justify what they'll get in return on rent? (Fuck no probably not). That's just the beginning off the top of my head....\n\nKid go back to building or digging. This takes years to learn. The hunger is appreciated and the balls are large. But you don't know what you're up against and ultimately you will fail. \n\nFind a regional developer and hand it off to him. ", "replies": [{"id": "dg7joan", "text": "Easy tiger.  I wasn't talking about building....just basic dirt moving.  Its out of city limits and zoned correctly.  That was one criteria that determined site selection.  There are plenty of other issues and questions for sure, which I did not ask here.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "dg7lmqz", "text": "I don't understand.  Who is purchasing at the close of lease date?  What is a close of lease date.  I could give insight but I don't understand who's doing what here.  ", "replies": [{"id": "dg7md3s", "text": "I am purchasing the bare ground.  I will be owning and acting as landlord during lease period (10-15yrs).  Lease is NNN.  \n\nThe partnering corp will be leasing from me and purchasing at the end of lease period(10-15yr).  During that lease period they will be developing property to their criteria.", "replies": [{"id": "dg7n26c", "text": "So this is a 15 year NNN ground lease?  They'll pay for improvements?  ", "replies": [{"id": "dg81asd", "text": "Yes.  They will be paying for the building development.", "replies": [{"id": "dg850r0", "text": "Well it just depends what your goals are.  Seems like if you can buy the land and just lease it to them, that's a great thing.  If you can make money by building a pad for them, that's good to.  I would look at them as two separate deals.  The lease deal has to make sense, and the dirt deal has to make sense.  If the dirt deal doesn't make sense, just do the lease.  If the lease deal only makes sense with the dirt end of things, make damn sure you're confident on the dirt part.  Have your geotechnical analysis done and make sure you agree on exactly what you're providing for them.  ", "replies": [{"id": "dg898yz", "text": "Makes sense.  Thanks.   Ive been working on the ground lease terms for a while and its going to be a good investment regardless.   Its just that we have a few months before we ink the deal and I am considering cleaning up and leveling the contours to add value.  Essentially, every dollar spent i get to add to the valuation which helps my rental price.  This deal also comes with a purchase option at the end of lease, so the valuation, pre-tenant development, would increase.", "replies": [{"id": "dg8ao7y", "text": "so it's a numbers game basically.  If the money you put in makes a return based off of the rent and sale, then go for it.  If not, or if that is in doubt in any way, I would let it lie and just go forward with the ground lease.  ", "replies": [], "depth": 7}], "depth": 6}], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "dg8lcc1", "text": "I'm still technically studying and getting my foot in the door in CRE. Technically if you own that land and you're planning on selling it anyways, I don't see why prepping land for use would be an issue, so long as you retain ownership rights of it prior to selling it to your partner company. \n\nNow if buyer is contracting you to procure the land and that buyer retains ownership and you decided to do this and then bill them for it, that would be a blatant conflict of interest.\n\nJust out of curiosity I'm kind of curious as to the nature of business of your partner. Specifically whether the design and construction is build-to-suit development (are they going to develop the property with the intent to use it themselves) or speculative (in which they develop and own the property with the intent to operate with returns based on tenancy focusing toward supplying an intended market, like offering retail-space).\n\nBuild-to-suit in this situation where you temporarily own the land seems like much less risk than a speculative development scenario.\n\nAlso... if you're going to prep the land anyways you might as well speak with you partner and begin the initial phases of contracting a land surveyor, soil engineer, and environmental consultant for confirmation that land is suitable for the design and development. \n\nAn accelerated schedule involving surveying and development design on your partners end might be a good thing. At least that way they put some skin in the game. You will be assuming a fair amount of risk involved with this deal, I'm just putting that out there.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]