Product Description

Written by an expert with 20 years of experience in commercial site evaluation, The Site Book is a practical book that takes a logical and process-oriented approach to site evaluation. Built around dozens of real-life examples of sites that work, sites that don't - and all the reasons why - this book explores the dynamic and sometimes complex relationship between site features and other factors that will ultimately determine the success of any restaurant or retail location. The Site Book features:

In depth discussion of the major areas affecting a site evaluation including customer sources, usage patterns, demographic reports, day parts, linkages, drop-in features, physical surroundings, image, trade area, growth strategies, competition, and cannibalism.

A step-by-step guide through the site evaluation process using a unique site evaluation worksheet.

Strategies for measuring and weighting the relative importance of each site feature and calculating a final site score.

Practical tips for specific concepts and varying market conditions - such as opening a first destination in a new market, adding a second store, or backfilling in a saturated market.

Strategies for site selection in competitive markets where the best locations are in short supply.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #258100 in Books
• Published on: 1996-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 165 pages

Review
A recently published book by Dr. Richard M. Fenker, The Site Book: A Field Guide to Commercial Real Estate Evaluation, is an easy-to-read, practical primer on site selection for restaurant and retail operations. This 165-page book quickly, and often humorously, drills down to site selection basics. "The Site Evaluation: provides several step-by-step examples for performing a site evaluation. In addition, it provides a workbook form that allows you to run the numbers in Fenker's model to yield a site evaluation score for a given site. It also includes practical pointers for specific site selection problems, such as backfilling in a saturated market, adding a second store in a market and entering a market with heavy competition. -- Business Geographics, May 1997

Here's an extremely valuable book for anyone who has to scout out locations for restaurants, service stations, or retail stores of any kind. Author Richard Fenker, a preeminent site consultant, details his methods for picking that perfect location. The site evaluation model he includes (also available on disk), quantifies and weights the positive and negative attributes of a site. This helps you come to a reasoned go or no-go decision. The book is as valuable for its common sense - much of it counterintuitive - as for the model. Fenker peppers the book with wisdom and stories of mistakes. That makes your modest investment in this book cheap insurance against buying and developing a "dog" site. -- Soundview Executive Book Summary, 1997

In The Site Book, author Richard Fenker examines the dynamic relationship among demographics, site features, and other factors and describes a simple mathematical model he developed to assess the quality and suitability of a specific retail business or restaurant. Fenker advises and guides readers through the site evaluation process, identifying opportunities, traps, pitfalls, and red flags along the way. -- Urban Land, September 1997

From the Back Cover
You need this book if ...

Your eyes glaze over whenever you get near a demographic report because you never know which numbers, rings, or measures really matter.

Your partner and best friend is still angry about that restaurant location you opened in Tulsa three years ago that is now a Wash-O-Matic.

You've been wondering why great visibility, access, and lots of your kind of people in the neighborhood didn't make for a successful site in Baltimore despite the fact that there are 23 direct competitors within one mile.

You've given up on finding a great "A" location near Atlanta, but want to know how risky some of the available "B" and "C" locations are.

You sometimes wonder what factors are "really" driving sales for your retail concept. (Your partner thinks it's the strip center next door.)

In the privacy of your home you admit to yourself that you don't really know why that site you picked on 2nd Street worked so well, when two miles away, the McArthur location, which your partner selected, is sucking gas.

You get a queasy feeling in your stomach when your clients ask about the impact of competition because you really don't know if competition is a plus or minus and how much competition is too much.

This quiz pokes fun at many of the dilemmas that confront any person making commercial real estate decisions today, but it also illustrates the need for an objective site evaluation process such as the one outlined in this book. This book is written for entrepreneurs, business owners, developers, agents, brokers, real estate executives, and any other individual responsible for making decisions about the potential of commercial real estate. If you have a site to evaluate or a new location to open, this book is for you!

About the Author
Richard Fenker has spent 25 years studying the factors that drive the success or failure of restaurant and retail locations. In a review of existing real estate models in the 1970s, Fenker became alarmed at how quickly the simple regression model, which many companies still depend on, deteriorated as a tool for evaluating new sites. Fenker addressed this problem by initiating the development of a logical approach to predictive site modeling and founded the Tangram Corporation in 1981 for the purpose of developing a scientific basis for commercial real estate evaluation.

Fenker received his Ph.D. in mathematical psychology from Purdue University in 1968. He has authored more than 50 research publications in statistics, artificial intelligence, and other related areas, and has written six books. Dr. Fenker has also built predictive models for government agencies, such as NASA, the CIA, and the United Nations.

Customer Reviews

Great for everyone
This book is great for everyone from the beginner to the seasoned sales forecaster.

I browse it every now and again to remind myself that there are fundamentals to this business, and we know how costly veering from those can be.

It's a fast read, and I highly recommend it to those doing site selection.

It's a Roadmap for Site Selection!
This book was referred to me by a co-worker (who happened to be an expert in real estate). Thanks!! I only wish I'd stumbled upon it years earlier.

After struggling with a homegrown spreadsheet modeling approach in my first retail business, this book brought together all the missing pieces in a way that made perfect sense. It gave me a framework to account for the qualitative site feature data that is so important, yet so difficult to deal with. It became my roadmap for site selection.

The logical model outlined in this book comes to life through Fenker's humorous examples of tips & traps.

If your business depends on good sites, you must read this book!

easy to understand and easy to apply
This book analyzes the the factors that go into choosing a good site for a commercial venture.

This alone would have been enough to earn 5 stars. The book goes on to present a system for rating potential sites that uses the factors explained in previous chapters. You can customize the process by changing the importance each factor carries.

A software package is offered for sale that provides templates and performs calculations. However, if you are handy with Excel, you should be able to recreate the template/calculations within a few hours.

This excellent book promises to be a guide to choosing commercial real estate. It delivers, in spades, on that promise.