- Spring 1998. The class "client"
was Ms. Deborah Butler, President and CEO of Butler Enterprises, the owner
of Butler Plaza, the largest Power Center in the Southeast US, with over
1,250,000 square feet of rental space.
- Spring 1999. "Analysing The Apartment
Rental Market." The external reader and "client" was Mr.
Nathan Collier, owner and founder of Paradigm Properties. Paradigm Properties
has more apartments under its ownership than any other firm in North Central
Florida. We approached the problem as a cross between retail location decision
and a housing decision. On the retail side we will follow
- Fall 2000. The project
was be to derive the marketability for two properties at the
request of Mr. Bruce DeLaney, Director of Real Estate for the University
of Florida Foundation. One property is apartment, and the other a true
mixed use (MXD). A variation of the study is published in Thrall, 2002,
and in GeoSpatial Solutions.
- Fall 2001. The project was to derive the
trade areas of hospitals on Long Island, New York, at the request of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the State of New York Department
of Public Health, and the US Department of Justice. Part of the study was
a variation of an article published in the June
2002 issue of GeoSpatial Solutions.
- Fall 2002. The semester team project was
to work with a local retail branch of one of the nation's largest multi-branch
retail firms. The team (students and professor) signed a confidentiality
agreement not to reveal the client, and to keep the data confidential.
The study comprised geocoding the client's point of sale (POS) data, assigning
lifestyle segmentation profiles (LSPs), and then calculating the primary
trade area. Given the LSP composition of the customers, advice was given
on how to increase market penetration, and which submarkets within the
larger trade area should receive greater focus. The client had stated that
advice from the national corporation seemed out of phase from the customers
they actually served. A comparison of LSPs of the branch to expected LSPs
at the corporate level revealed that the local market differed significantly
from the national average. Students participating in this study wrote two
BA Honors papers.
- Fall 2003. The semester team project was
to work with City of Gainesville urban planner, Dom Nozzi, to create benchmarks
on economic development of Downtown Gainesville. Benchmarks established
the development path from the 1980s through to the current time period.
These benchmarks can be used in the future to measure the impact on downtown
attributable to changes in the built environment. Anticipated changes in
the built environment include reducing the number of highway lanes and
adding new government buildings.
- Fall 2004. The semester team project was
to work with Florida Atlantic University's strategic management. We calculated
market penetration within their trade area of attendance to university
sports events.
- Fall 2005. The semester team project was
to work with the developers of University Corners (http://www.universitycorners.com)
and identify value platforms and locations for new apartment development
within the Gainesville area.
- Fall 2006. The semester team project was
to work with St Petersburg College. We calculated their market penetration,
trade area, and suggested means by which to increase penetration in targeted
submarkets.
- Fall 2007. This semester our "client"
is the College of Business, University of Florida. We will be evaluating
the geographic distribution of their online MBA students with the objective
of suggesting locations for regional facilities, evaluation of market penetration
and suggestions on which submarkets to focus upon to increase market penetration.
An excerpt from Thrall, del Valle and Hinzmann
(1997) provides the thrust of this course:
Introduction
Here we introduce the importance to a retail chain of senior management's
adoption of a procedural strategy for the selection of retail sites. A
retail site is a real estate investment. A retail site is also an investment
in the product and image of the retail chain. "Good deals" are
regularly being presented to retail chains by real estate agents whose
objective is to sell a site. While the deal may on its own appear to be
attractive, the site analyst must consider how the location fits into the
expansion plans of the parent firm, and how the location conforms to other
locations that are successful with the chain's product offerings. Locations
selected on the basis of "good deals" may in the final analysis
not make any locational sense and may not add real marketable value to
the parent firm.
We discuss how recent advancements in GIS (geographic information systems)
technology have facilitated retail location research, and how this research
can provide a competitive advantage to the retail firm. A seven-step procedure
is introduced that integrates geographic technology with a site selection
procedural policy.
Justification and Value of a Business Location Strategy A good retail
site adds to the value of the product of the retail chain. Location is
one of the most important competitive advantages that a firm can possess.
Location affects the demand that people have for the product offered by
the retail chain. Location contributes to demand because of the surrounding
spatial distribution of people and their income, race, ethnicity, age,
and so on. Each retail chain designs their product toward certain types
of households. GIS analysts for retail chains learn the type of households
that are more likely to be attracted to the offerings of the retail chain.
Because people with the target characteristics are not uniformly distributed,
then the location of the retail chain will affect proximity between the
target population and the outlet. Proximity has a very large effect upon
demand for the goods and services offered by the retail chain. A good location
then can help maximize the potential sales of the firm. …
Class Schedule By Topic
- Agreement
Grading
Semester project written
30%
Semester project oral presentation 1 20%
Semester project oral presentation 2 20%
Class participation 30%
