We developed a bottom-up and top down approach to understanding the client’s options for this project. The opportunity was to acquire a piece of land from a large public sector agency for development of facilities that would be in keeping with the client’s core activities, but also ensure that it brought new opportunities into the area with a positive economic impact. To achieve this, we analysed the research and business activity in the local area, mapped this onto the client’s own background and interests and developed a number of themes that could potentially fulfil the requirements of the brief. We then undertook a series of global market forecast analyses on the specific areas of business, and research that they related to, to provide a final list of ‘hot’ areas to follow. Taking this all together, and looking at local business activity and growth in the same areas, we were able to build a model for the planned facility based on a likely demand for space (office, workshop and laboratory), project the potential human occupancy of such a facility and derive a market rental level using local comparative analysis. This was used to feed budget modelling for facilities build and future operation.