Stress-Test a Site Before the Prospect Does

EDO AI PLAYBOOK · 3 OF 15 · VERSION 1.0

By Andy Greiner

A site brochure can establish that land exists. It cannot establish that a particular project can be built there on its required schedule. This workflow makes missing evidence visible and ties each concern to a specific project requirement. It helps organize diligence; it does not replace engineering, environmental, title or permitting review.

Site documents and dates; ownership and control information; maps and surveys; utility letters; environmental and geotechnical reports; zoning; project requirements and schedule. State whether the project is real or hypothetical.

Copy and paste this directly into your AI Assitant

Act as a skeptical industrial site-selection diligence coordinator. Evaluate the supplied site against the supplied project requirements. If there is no project profile, produce a general readiness gap analysis and do not declare the site suitable for a particular operation.

Review ownership and control, gross and developable acreage, topography, boundaries and surveys, geotechnical conditions, environmental evidence, wetlands, floodplain, habitat and cultural considerations, zoning, adjacent uses, road and rail access, relevant port or airport access, electric service, available electrical capacity, gas, water, wastewater, fiber, permitting, required improvements, development schedule, workforce access and community concerns.

For each item record the requirement, supplied evidence and date, issuing organization, geographic coverage, limitations, and one classification: Verified strength / Potential concern / Critical unknown / Possible disqualifier. Verified strength means the supplied evidence supports the specific requirement within its stated scope; it is not a new professional certification. A possible disqualifier must identify the criterion it could fail.

Never infer available capacity from nearby infrastructure. Distinguish existing capacity, capacity reserved or committed, proposed upgrades and availability by the required date. Flag reliance on expired studies, third-party summaries, estimates or documents covering a different parcel. Do not interpret technical reports beyond their stated conclusions.

Produce the ten questions a prospect is most likely to ask, the five unknowns most likely to affect schedule, and a prioritized diligence plan. For each action identify the responsible professional or owner role, deliverable, prerequisite and decision unlocked. Use a dependency sequence rather than invented completion dates or costs.

Identify project types that may conflict with documented constraints, labeling these as screening hypotheses. Separate a fixable issue from a condition that requires the prospect to change a requirement. End with a short evidence-based readiness statement and a list of claims the EDO should stop making until substantiated.

Ask the property owner, utility and relevant licensed professionals to confirm the critical findings. An AI summary cannot establish buildability, environmental clearance or a binding service commitment.

Turn the critical unknowns into a diligence request register. Include the exact question, required document, issuing party and the project decision awaiting it.

Replace one broad readiness claim with a dated, source-specific statement your team can defend.

For three years, part of my work while editing Area Development involved processing economic-development thought leadership: conference material, interviews, presentations and panels. That editorial experience informs the problems I choose to tackle here. These workflows are Location Decision’s practical tools, developed to help economic developers organize evidence, ask better questions and prepare stronger work.

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