Turning Plans into Places: A CEI Podcast
Turning Plans into Places is a podcast by CEI Engineering Associates, where we explore the people, projects, and perspectives shaping the future of civil engineering, land surveying, landscape architecture, and site development across the United States.
In each episode, we dive into the real-world challenges and creative solutions behind the work we do, whether it's retail, fueling and convenience store development, outdoor recreation, municipal transportation, or sports facility engineering. Our expert guests break down the details, share industry insights, and highlight how CEI's integrated approach delivers smarter, more resilient places.
But this podcast is more than just technical talk. We also shine a spotlight on CEI's company culture—the people behind the plans. From entry-level stories to leadership journeys, remote work experiences to mentorship moments, we'll explore what makes CEI a dynamic, connected team that values innovation, collaboration, and community.
Whether you're a client, industry partner, future employee, or just curious about the infrastructure that supports everyday life, this podcast is your invitation to go behind the scenes with CEI.
Subscribe and follow as we turn plans into places, one conversation at a time.
Turning Plans into Places: A CEI Podcast
Ep. 1 - The Key to Project Success
Successful fueling and convenience store development hinges on masterful pre-development planning. The foundation of your project's success isn't just about selecting prime real estate—it's about understanding the complex dance of regulations, community concerns, and technical requirements before breaking ground.
Our expert panel from CEI unpacks the critical elements that can make or break your next convenience store project. Jim Tredwell shares wisdom gained from 30+ years overseeing projects from both owner and consultant perspectives, emphasizing how early planning creates stronger foundations. "If you don't have a strong foundation, you'll have a weak project," he notes, highlighting how pre-development sets the course for controlling risk throughout the project lifecycle.
The conversation reveals surprising insights about site investigations that developers often overlook. From outdated surveys in seller packets to hidden infrastructure limitations in growing municipalities, our experts identify the common pitfalls that delay projects and inflate budgets. They offer practical guidance on navigating restrictive covenants, environmental concerns, and community pushback that can derail even well-planned developments.
Modern survey technology emerges as a game-changer for developers willing to invest in comprehensive site understanding. As Dustin Riley explains, "We're getting a thousand times more data than we've ever got in less time than it's ever taken." His team's approach to drone and LIDAR technology delivers safer, more thorough site assessments while eliminating costly return visits. The panel challenges the common request for "the cheapest survey," explaining how this mindset often costs developers more through extended timelines and unexpected complications.
Whether you're expanding an existing brand or developing your first convenience store location, this episode provides the roadmap for smoother, more predictable project delivery. Listen now to gain practical insights that will transform how you approach your next development opportunity. Have you experienced unexpected delays in your projects? Share your story and learn how comprehensive pre-development planning could have changed your outcome.
Hello and welcome to today's episode of Turning Plans Into Places where we explore the real world challenges and solutions that are shaping the future of engineering, surveying and site development. I'm your host, debbie Jones, and I'm thrilled to be joined by a powerhouse panel of experts from CEI to dive into everything from smart site planning to survey tech innovations and how these elements can drive success for fueling and convenience store developments across the country. Let me introduce our guests. First we have Jim Treadwell, clientient Sector Leader for Fueling and Convenience.
Speaker 2:Pleasure to be here, thank you.
Speaker 1:Jim brings more than 30 years of experience in all facets of project delivery, from leading the client-side construction efforts to now serving on the consultant side. He understands the full life cycle of these developments and brings a unique owner's perspective that's incredibly valuable. Joining Jim is Kevin Hall, the Director of Technical Services at CEI. With over 21 years at the firm, kevin is known for bringing consistency and technical precision to complex programs. His experience with everything from entitlements to permitting to coordination with municipalities across the country is going to shed a lot of light on the pre-development process. And rounding out our expert panel today is Dustin Riley, department Manager for National Survey Services. Dustin oversees survey operations coast toast through internal teams and a well-defined national network. He is able to integrate new technologies like drone and LIDAR into national rollouts while keeping a sharp focus on data accuracy, speed, value for the clients while keeping the information easy and user-friendly.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Debbie.
Speaker 1:Welcome you guys. So for today, our topics whether you're a developer, a project manager or part of a brand looking to expand your footprint, this conversation today will be packed with insights to help you avoid common pitfalls and set your project up for long-term success. So if you guys are good, let's jump in. All right, all right.
Speaker 3:So Jim Kevin Dustin, thank you guys very much for being here today.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having us. So let's start at the beginning. How does the pre-development process in fueling and convenience store development really shape the outcome of these types of projects?
Speaker 2:I'd love to answer that question, debbie. It's a very important question. It's like a foundation that determines the entire life cycle of the project. If you don't have a strong foundation, you'll have a weak project. It sets the course and the project plan to go forward, to control risk and ensure the project visibility and success. So I would say that's the most important part of the process is the pre-development phase.
Speaker 1:I love that. So what should developers consider early on when it comes to entitlements permitting and setting realistic timelines?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, the process starts with the selection of the project team. You want to make sure that you have a consultant that's been vet out, that has the experience, the know-how, to do that particular project. In this case we're talking about fueling and sea stores. They are unique in the sense that you have multiple operations within that space, versus a big box retail project where it's just a singular use and there's site considerations as well as operational issues, and there's also fuel tanks and other engineering components that need to be properly coordinated.
Speaker 1:When it comes to site plan design for fueling and C-stores, what are some of the key decisions that can make or break a site?
Speaker 2:I'd like to answer that, if I could. Access is a very important aspect of that the location of your fueling tanks, the design of your fueling island, the canopy, your path of travel routes going from the building to the dispenser areas. Also, things as small as your trash dumpster areas. You've got service deliveries. You've got turning radiuses. You have to navigate all that with some of the city requirements. You've got setbacks right-of-ways. You've got stormwater considerations. There's a whole myriad of issues that come into play.
Speaker 3:I'd expand on that a little bit too, with local and jurisdictional zoning requirements, state requirements, is this convenience store going to sell alcohol? At least in this part of the country, there's a lot of regulations around selling alcohol within so many feet of a church or a school, so it's better to figure those things out as early as possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a very good point and that kind of falls in line with restricted covenants within the title. If it's an out parcel in a shopping center and you have a major anchor let's say it's a Publix or a Ralph's, whatever the store is, it could be a Home Depot they will have restrictions on use. They don't want any competing uses that could impact their operation. Or it could be parking restrictions, could be sightline variances Typically, for example, on a store you cannot put any. Your building cannot be within a certain 150 feet of the major entrance. So there's a whole slew of issues that kind of fall in line with what you were saying.
Speaker 1:So that is actually a perfect segue into the next question, because what you are really talking about is finding out that information early in the process, at a time that you're giving the owner the best opportunity to react, plan, mitigate or change course with the least financial impact, and I think that a lot of that falls under the site investigation process. So let's talk a little bit more about that. We know that site investigations can sometimes reveal surprises. In addition to the items that you just mentioned, what are some common issues that you see during this phase, and how can teams get ahead of them?
Speaker 2:I'll start off on responding and you guys can chirp in on this. You could have potential code violations that were not apparent, latent issues such as that that could impact the design and operation of the C-Store. Also, you could have environmental issues. You could have phase two operations that are going on that, indirectly or directly, can impact the project. Also, you could have we spoke earlier about restricted covenants that could become very noticeable affecting the project. And geotechnical considerations. It could be a project site where you've got a high water table. You could have soil cohesion issues. I know if it's a project in Florida you've got sinkhole issues. There's a whole slew of different things geotechnically that could adversely affect the design of the project. And then the more common one is just inaccurate, outdated drawings that were provided as part of the sales package. So you're starting on developing the project and you find out that the survey was outdated, did not reflect some of the more recent changes to the site and I'm sure you guys must have, uh, dealt with that as well yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And then sometimes you know these c stores are going in the growing cities and populations, um, there's infrastructure problems or issues that you can kind of find out or research in the beginning. You know, for example, like sewer capacity and things like that. So we've ran into issues with some municipalities growing and they're just finding out themselves that they have a sewer capacity issue. So, talking about that in the beginning, you know the site investigation report you are. We are reaching out to the cities and talking to them about you know where to tap into the water sewer, you know where those things are at and other things.
Speaker 2:That's a very good point, because you get fooled a little bit. You have an existing survey or site drawing that shows here's where the water line is, but it doesn't give you the elevation of that line Correct. Or it could be a sanitary line and you need to have a grinder pump and a force main to design into it. So there's a whole myriad of different issues that go with that.
Speaker 1:So I've got a bit of a follow-up to that, Dustin, and I'd love your take on this. How do you think that integrating survey services early in the process can really benefit the team and the client? So we've been talking kind of from an engineering perspective. But I know when Jim mentioned the client packet, so the client packet comes to you, it's got a survey in there and then that is what you're, that's basically what you're starting with. So walk me a little bit through that process and things you look for.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. Integrated survey in the beginning, I think is critical to your, to your development projects for a number of reasons. I mean to Jim's point. A lot of times the seller has a packet of historical data available. It's probably not up to date. It probably doesn't have the information you need on it. Having an integrated survey team with your design team, whether they're in the same company or not, I think is absolutely important on the front end and provide. I mean in the survey request.
Speaker 3:When you're requesting a survey from a consultant, give them all the information you have. I mean, if you call and ask for a survey because you're buying this property and you don't tell them what you're planning on doing with the property, where you're planning on connecting to utilities, how you plan on accessing the property, I can almost guarantee you won't get all the information you need. Give them everything you have. It may be a rough concept site plan. You may not know where you're going to tie into utilities, but you know what utilities you need, you know. Give all that information on the request up front. Title commitment, if it's available, the exception documents, if they're available, plat records, deed records, everything you can get your hands on as early as possible will get the most information in the survey is the best chance you have at getting all the information you need in one shot is a flood hazard information where we may need to get a LOMA, you know, letter of amendment and an elevation certificate, and I think isn't it true.
Speaker 2:nowadays with the drones and the LIDAR, that process becomes a little easier to do.
Speaker 3:It is. I mean there's a lot of good GIS data available FEMA, floodplain information, base, level engineering data that we can use during an SIR. You know, pull that data and just get an idea. But yes, during the survey phase nail it down and determine exactly how it's going to affect and cut your losses if it's going to hinder the development.
Speaker 1:That sounds good. That's a really great point, though that was brought up. So there is an awful lot of buzz around new survey tech drones, lidar, mobile scanning. What is actually working well in the field right now and where do you see the biggest impact based on technology right now on project delivery?
Speaker 3:I'll take that. I mean first off, from a survey manager perspective, there's a safety aspect. I mean dangerous or sites that have fall hazards or water hazards or trip you know timber laid down during the tornado a couple years ago we did a lot of work to mitigate the tree fall and clean up efforts, and being able to fly over the side and collect all that data without sending humans through there is a great advancement in technology, in my opinion. From a client perspective, it's collecting data as efficiently as possible. We're getting a thousand times more data than we've ever got in less time than it's ever taken Just getting a more complete picture of the site, minimizing trips to go back to the site.
Speaker 3:I mean, if we go out and fly this site on the front end, we extract all the data. We go out and fly this site on the front end, we extract all the data, provide the deliverables, and then we find out three months down the road that actually this access isn't going to work. We're going to need to move over. We need some more data here that we didn't know we needed. Well, now, instead of driving back to the site, I can go back to my data set, pull more data. It's priceless in our line of work and the biggest impacts moving forward. I think AI is the next phase of this technology. You know we're getting pretty good at flying drones and collecting data and processing LIDAR and ortho imagery. The next step is using the AI to extract the data we want autonomously and I think we'll see that in the next few years.
Speaker 1:I love that. Well, this will be a good. This will be a fun question. We often hear developers say just give me the cheapest survey. They want the least that they need. They're trying to invest the lowest amount of capital at the beginning of the project before they know that it's sure. So they're really trying to be safe with their money. But we often hear developers say I just I need the bare minimum. Give me the cheapest so that I can check this box. What would you say to that mindset?
Speaker 3:I'd like to take that. My recommendation would be to change your thinking from the cheapest survey to the most complete survey. Everybody wants all of our services for as cheap as you can get them. I mean, nobody wants to spend money they don't have to spend. I respect that. But going in with the mindset of I'm going to get the cheapest survey almost always costs more time, more effort throughout the project, missing information, misrepresented information, not having what you need on the front end. If it, if you go into this and save a couple of thousand dollars on your survey and it costs you 60 or 90 days to get a CFO, did you really save any money? It's not a cheap survey. At that point I would go into it with the intent of getting the most complete survey for the best price, if you can.
Speaker 4:At that point in the survey you're still vetting out things, you're still looking at how the site, the topography of the site, lays, and so getting the more information you can in the beginning is going to help everybody and all the partners in the project to understand what complications there are with the site and how you're going to come Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can definitely see how that would actually save probably a lot more than a couple hundred, you might say.
Speaker 3:Time is money.
Speaker 1:Time is money. Let's get back and go ahead and wrap up the last question that I have regarding site investigations, because it sort of leads a little bit to this local idea. Let's talk about something developers are always trying to figure out Do you go with a local engineer in doing these site investigations and survey? So, do you go with a local engineer who knows the area, or do you go with a national team that brings consistency across the market? What's the right mix and how do you know?
Speaker 2:I'd like to take a stab at that. I think you go with the right engineer, one who understands the requirements of a particular area area. It's not based on physical distance to the building department itself, but it's understanding how the building department operates. In terms of our plan submission schedules, review requirements, everything nowadays is handled a lot differently than it was 25 years ago. It's more automated. You have to understand what the requirements are and how to formulate a plan to deal with those requirements. We're lucky because we've got offices across the country. Each one of our offices has a sphere of influence that allows us to effectively deal with things. I know for the Florida market, for example. I've dealt with most of the planning departments in that area. I understand how to get things through the system, how to untangle knots and formulate a pathway to address very pertinent issues. So we're very lucky to have that expertise. And again, it's not based on locality, it's based on knowledge base.
Speaker 3:I would expand on that some time. I mean the only time. I would recommend a local presence. If you're the owner, developer and it's the community you live and operate in, it might benefit you to have a local consultant. If you're working on a program across the country of several stores, you're going to benefit from having a program team on each project that can learn from mistakes, take those to the next project. Anybody can read the code for a city and learn it and make an application, but 20 years ago I think it was a more critical element. I mean nowadays I don't think it's as important.
Speaker 2:I want to also add to what you just said. I've been involved in projects where we had local engineers working on a project within a 15-mile distance and they were not keeping up with the planning resolution minutes, the follow-up requirements. The letter would come from the planning department in April and I find out they didn't address those issues until three months later. So the fact that they were local was not an advantage in that case. So to me it's doing the homework up front. Reminds me of when I was in architectural school. They told me you can accomplish more with a pen and pencil. In the very beginning chart out what the issues are, diagnose the problem. It's almost like a surgical team going into a hospital working on a patient. Before you operate on that patient, you have a pre-op meeting to go over what the issues are, what the mitigation process would be to resolve things. So that's my take on it.
Speaker 3:Well said.
Speaker 4:And I would like to add that consistency, because you know you've got people on your team. You don't want to train new people every time. With a local consultant, the owner, the client's going to have to tell them what their expectations are for every local consultant they're going to use. If you have a national team, they already know that there are times that they may have to get a local person involved at there are times that they might have to get a local person involved, but now that the program is responsible for training, that person and not the client.
Speaker 2:And I just want to mention one thing. We talk about proximity, locality, a lot of states, you've got state offices that are located 175 miles away from where the project site is. You've got agencies spread all over. It's having the expertise to understand what the purposes of those agencies and how they relate to the project itself. So, again, I really feel that the locality issue is not as significant as it needs to be.
Speaker 1:One thing that was surprising to me, just to wrap up the site investigation piece is how often fueling and convenience stores get pushback from the community. What is the key to earning community trust and support, and how can engineers and developers work together to tell the right story about these projects?
Speaker 2:I'd love to answer that the primary goal there is to create solidarity with the neighborhood. You need to stress the value that the project is bringing to the local area. It may also entail participating in common causes. If it's an area where they have a book drive, where they're trying to help the schools, you may want to participate in that as a co-sponsor. That's always important.
Speaker 2:The other thing is to have neighborhood meetings where you discuss some of the problems that they have about the project. Let's say it's a noise issue or they're concerned about the possibility of having crime in the area. You try to address those issues and maybe they feel that the project is intrusive and that the size of the roof is too big and they don't want to look out and they all of this stuff. You come up with different measures. One of the things that you need your consultant to do is become a strong advocate for the project in planning commission air hearings to articulate all these mitigating factors successfully. I know I was on some meetings where the planning director did not want to approve the project, but we had a side caucus I requested. I had the planners in the room. We worked out a solution where we had to put up some additional landscaping along an edge of the property to comply with their aesthetic standards. So it's communication, involvement and coming up with some sort of contribution.
Speaker 1:Kevin, you've mentioned a lot about consistency, but how do you ensure each piece of parcel of land is very different? How do you ensure the consistency and quality in survey standards across different projects and locations?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so that's knowing your client's expectations and quality in survey standards across different projects and locations. Yeah, so that's knowing your client's expectations. We develop checklists of the Table A items and the ALTA when we review it. So we've got a checklist of all the items that are reported to the client to make sure that we either show them, label them or note them and how they affect the property, and then just training your team to be on the lookout for those things.
Speaker 4:You know you have to kind of step back and look at the property as a whole, see what the client's goal is for that property. And, you know, just imagine if it was your property in your hands. What are you going to do? And so you have to look at the big picture and not get focused on just that property itself. You kind of have to see how it affects the joiners and you know, maybe there's some runoff from a water, runoff from other other properties that you're going to have to deal with. You want to communicate, to communicate to that, to that. You want to communicate that to your team of engineers. And then, you know, keeping your engineers in the loop. When we hand off the survey to our engineering team, we have a debriefing. You know, these are the things that we saw. These are the things that we thought you might want to know and then keep them in the loop of that too. So we're not just sliding a survey under the door and they're going to design.
Speaker 1:That. That is actually a really great point, dustin, if you are, you know, and I've I've seen it in the past from the client aspect of things, where there'll be a big gathering of information and then basically there's kind of an information dump on the client. So what kind of steps do you take or what would you expect? I guess what I'm really looking for here is how do you make the information, all the information that you've gathered, user friendly and applicable, because most of the people that you've gathered user-friendly and applicable, because most of the people that are reviewing our plans are not other surveyors or engineers. What steps I guess really what I'm looking for to make that user-friendly?
Speaker 3:That's a good question. To reiterate what Kevin said, I mean client expectations is the first piece of that. Understanding your client's expectations and needs is the first piece of that. Understanding your client's expectations and needs and then just keeping the client updated as the project goes along. I mean, to Kevin's point, not just delivering the survey and walking away. If we run into issues on the site, let them know immediately. Hey, there's a homeless camp back here. You might want to get that taken care of before you buy this property. We've run into that recently. There's environmental concerns. I mean if we come onto a site and you see evidence of dumping or trash or anything, we want to get that information into our client's hands as early as possible. Keep working on the survey and then delivering the data in a digestible format. That title professional attorneys, the client representatives, can comprehend and read and then be available to answer questions, address comments in a timely manner. Be available throughout the duration of the project if anything comes up.
Speaker 1:So, jim, following up on what Dustin just said and making the information user-friendly we know that our developer friends are very, very busy people. I think it's key making the information digestible and user-friendly and maybe using a heat map or some way of identifying priorities or things that could be really impactful financially or hard impacts to timelines. I think that's really important. So can you elaborate a little bit on how you might handle challenges relating to zoning variances, reciprocal easements or any of those other issues that Dustin just mentioned that might turn up in the survey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of value in going through the CCNRs, the title report, to dig into all the different declarations, all the covenants, all the deeds that are referenced, because you can see a story there and it's not been updated on the drawings and it's going to have a direct impact on your schedule. I had a project once where it was just a tire store and it was part of a larger subdivision and we found out that it was controlled by a managing partner that was out of state. It required sign-off from four of the junior partners. I had to physically drive to their house to get them to sign off. It can be a real issue.
Speaker 2:I had another project related to that. It was another retail store that was in an out parcel on a shopping center. They were ready to go hard with their money. It was a purchase sale agreement and before they had to sign it they found out that they needed a sign off from the major tenant. The anchor tenant had to sign off on the project and this was a week before money had to go hard. So we had to go right to the corporate offices, beg and plead them to please sign it and do what we needed to do. There was another project that had a sound issue that had to be resolved. So we had to pull together the community. People lived in this upscale community. We had a sound engineer come out do sound studies to get it all taken care of. Anyway, I hope I answered your question. I don't want to meander on that.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting just all of the circumstances that could potentially come up. Every community is so unique what they come up with. I think it was really really important, dustin, when you said take time to listen to your community, understand the nature of what they're, where they're coming from, and then you may be working on a different problem to solve. So it sounds like that is a really good way. But early identification has been really the theme here, I think from everybody's conversation, and so it really ties back to a very thorough site investigation report that's got the components, a clear understanding of the client needs, and then this is one that gets a little bit tricky and I see different firms do it different ways. But I would like to know your opinion on the appropriate time and who should attend a kickoff meeting.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll take a step by that. Well, you have the initial kickoff meeting. Once the project has gone through loan committee and it was approved and there's an LOI pending, you want to have a meeting with all the players on your team. In this case it's in the pre-construction phase. You haven't selected a contractor yet, so it would be with the architect yourself and, as a project manager, and other stakeholders that are involved in the process. So you've got that type of a kickoff meeting Once the project starts to segue into the permitting stage. Then you have a more formal meeting that can be conducted as a team's call with all the project players to go through the list of action items that are needed Now.
Speaker 2:As a precursor to that, you may have a pre-site application meeting with the city and in that meeting you go over all the city requirements and those requirements may need to update the SIR report. There could be additional issues that surface in that pre-app meeting with the city that could affect your stormwater design, could affect, maybe, access to the project. Certain people that are on that call from the city, like from Public Works or from Traffic, may say, oh gosh, you know, I don't know if you can have access on that area of the site. You know there may be an issue, so that's something you need to follow up with. So it's very important in that kickoff meeting Once the project goes forward, I like to have standard. We used to call ball and court meetings. These would be on a weekly or bi-monthly basis with all the project players and it goes down to keeping track of all the conditions, all the action steps and making sure that all the project players are doing what they need to do to go forward Nice.
Speaker 1:Dustin, what do you think about timing?
Speaker 3:I agree with Jim. I mean there's various kickoff meetings throughout a project, like Jim said. I think every one of those everyone involved in the project up to that point should be a part of it. I mean within reason. I mean there's a kickoff meeting for design. There's a pre-application meeting with the city. There's a pre-con meeting where you go to construction. There you know, get everybody to the table. You don't want to go down to a punch list at the end of a project and get in CFO and hear why you can't get to too late.
Speaker 2:And I just want to add one thing, I'm sorry to come to mind. One of the most important kickoff meetings are the ones where you go to the job site after your building permit was just issued, and are the ones where you go to the job site after your building permit was just issued and you have a representative from Public Works, you have a representative from the Planning Department, you have one from Stormwater I like to have them all there at that meeting and you go over in reverse the checklist, the closing checklist. They're going to need a back teeth test, they're going to need a gas pressure test. They're going to need a gas pressure test. If there is a grinder pump, they're going to need to have a test of that pump. More the merrier. Get all the decision makers at that front meeting so you get a head start addressing all those items.
Speaker 1:I love the idea of working backwards. I think that is definitely a trick to determining your priorities and also to make sure that you're hitting the deadline, because we know that all of those items have different lead times and that are ever-changing, so I think that has been a real challenge. So, jim, what are some of the strategies that you may use to engage with community members to address their concerns during public hearings?
Speaker 2:We did in one respect. There's a couple more to come to mind on strategies. We used to host neighborhood meetings. I may have mentioned it. You have them catered with pizza or whatever, and you have a diagram of the project on foam boards showing what the project's going to be, and it's been very effective for me doing that.
Speaker 1:You know it's funny Sometimes. I mean there's so much technology out there available to reach out to neighborhoods and Facebooks and pages and those kind of connections, but I don't think you can ever overvalue the power of personal connection. And I think, going back to the time when you pull people together from the community, when you offer a little bit of fellowship there, get to hear their point of view and their stories, why does this make a difference? How is this going to improve people's lives or impact what they're doing or improve convenience? And I just think that that shows a lot of respect and that is the purpose of all of these plans. At the end of the day, the developers they need good plans to have great projects, but their goal is not great plans. Their goal is to impact the communities, provide their services and improve the lives of the people in the communities that they serve. So we have to keep that in game in mind always. And then I appreciate all the ideas today and strategies to try to make the process to get there a little bit easier.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely Yep.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's a good one, and it can be Dustin or Kevin. What advice would you give to developers looking to save money on survey services without compromised quality?
Speaker 4:So you have to you know. Again back to the standards. What expectations do you have? Giving them all the information in the beginning and the communication throughout the survey itself? You know, as a surveyor and a consultant, you know if I see things that are out of the ordinary on the survey, bringing those to light to the client as soon as possible. Do you have anything to add to that? No, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1:Here's a follow-up question to that. A lot of times people consider survey and the survey team and you mentioned how important it was to keep that team involved. How would I keep them involved? A lot of times people think of survey as something that happens up front and then in the opportunity at the end there might be some staking and some other survey services that are provided. But can you give me some examples? Help me understand how survey can impact projects in the middle, specifically feeling inconvenience projects. Projects in the middle specifically fueling inconvenience projects.
Speaker 4:I've always liked the relationship with the legal team. You know, when we're working through the title commitment and exceptions it's. You know, I'm not a lawyer, I don't study law, but they do, but they don't go to the site and see the site and do the survey. So it's like a perfect team. If we can bounce things off of each other, we can talk through it and why we believe this exception may affect or not affect, you know, and then they can come in with their legal advice and work as a team to make a decision and help the client out in that.
Speaker 3:In that regards, and I would add add I mean keeping keeping your survey consultant involved in the middle might include the surveyor working with the contractor providing staking services, laying out the, the building and the parking lot and the utilities from the same control that we use for the survey the design is based on. I think the easiest way to keep your survey involved throughout the course of the project is hiring a surveyor, that's an integrated survey civil design consulting team. But if you're not doing that, at least keeping them at the table during discussions, inviting them to these various kickoff meetings, holding them accountable if there's issues, working through those issues you know, and then, all the way to close out of the project, staking the items as built, providing data at the very end.
Speaker 1:All right, jim. Well, you have the lucky honor of answering this last pointed question. Okay, can you elaborate on the importance of pre-development entitlement and permitting process to ensure project success?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we may touch on it. Let me restate it as I said before, it's like the foundation of the project. The pre-development stage is very important because it tells you all the pieces you have on the table, how to align those pieces and which consultants you need to have on the project. That will be the most effective. We spoke just a few minutes ago about the land use attorney and lawyers are good at understanding the law, but the practical nature of it transcends that. To get things approved, you have to know how to deal with the people that are behind the counter and how to influence them to get things done and I remember that on certain projects that had very how do I say this? They were very prejudiced about having a C-store in the neighborhood. You need to go to each one of the council people that are voting on that project, understand what are the issues that they feel very strong about and figure out how to address those issues with proper mitigating measures. That's something that a lawyer doesn't necessarily do. A lawyer gets involved is when you're in a legal entanglement where the project is going in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2:Most projects can be worked out early on by being forthright, honest, sincere and dealing with the facts and the project is can be approved based on use according to the zoning code, then that you'll have a leg up.
Speaker 2:And if the the city has a prejudice against this type of project and they're trying to influence it, I had one projects, for example. It was a car wash project and they did not want the car wash project in that area. They instead wanted what they called a live work type of project where you have retail on the top or on the bottom. It was so ridiculous because the project was zoned for a car wash, but they wanted to impact it and they said we don't care, that's the way it is it. And they says we don't care, that's the way it is. In that case you find out who the people on the planning commission that vote on the project approach them and work out a very pragmatic solution to get it done. We got it approved. So, um, that's the way I view that part of the project, the pre-development phase I love that with gentlemen.
Speaker 1:it's been a great conversation today. We'll wrap it up from here, so thank you much. So thank you very much for your time and insight.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it was a pleasure to be here. Thanks, debbie you.