Challenge
The city of San Francisco needed to purchase the Society of California
Pioneers’ Civic Center–area property, home to the organization’s
headquarters and museum, to build a new municipal court facility. The
city hired an outside appraisal firm to establish a fair market value
for the property that would allow the Society to replace its facilities.
Upon reviewing the valuation of $3.7 million, the Society decided it needed
its own analysis of the facility replacement cost. The organization hired
IMA to perform that analysis, and later to help it find and renovate a
new building.
Solution
In analyzing the city-commissioned appraisal, IMA found that it was
based on simply replicating the Society’s longtime home and did
not take into account the fact that current codes and accessibility
requirements would govern any new construction. IMA documented these
additional upgrade and compliance costs in its report on the valuation,
providing the Society with a factual basis for demanding and securing
a significantly higher purchase price of $4.7 million.
The Society then extended IMA’s assignment to helping the organization
find a replacement property, an effort that included estimating renovation
costs for properties under consideration. IMA helped the Society determine
that with its buyout money, it could afford to relocate to a larger
existing building in San Francisco’s museum district that would
accommodate expanded offices, archives, and museum and exhibition spaces.
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