You recently joined Magna Enterprise, a commercial real estate developer, and have been given a position working directly for Evelyn Kemme, Magna's CEO. When you meet Evelyn for the first time, she gives you a project she wants you to complete by the end of the week.

Evelyn explains that Magna is thinking about leasing a parcel of land to build a shopping center. Magna would own and operate the shopping center and generate revenue by renting space to retailers. Evelyn would like you do some work on the project. Specifically, she would like you to complete the following tasks:

1. Determine the optimal size of the shopping center (to the nearest 100 square meters) based on existing estimates of the demand for retail space.

2. Determine the most Magna should be willing to pay to lease the land for the expected life of the project.

3. Calculate the profit under each possible demand curve with the optimum size of the shopping center.

4. Determine if it is worth hiring a local consultant, David Smith, to do some additional market research that would provide a better estimate of the demand for retail space.

5. Write a short report summarizing the results of your analysis and any recommendations.

Evelyn tells you that Martin Bernetson, a former Magna employee, did some preliminary work on the project, but left the organization before wrapping things up. Evelyn says that you should have complete confidence in any work Martin did on the project and that you should use his findings and assumptions as a starting point for your analysis. In fact, Evelyn has reviewed Martin's notes and quickly summarizes the key information she thinks you'll need for your analysis.

Specifically, she tells you that:

• Martin thought the shopping center would take one year to build and would last 20 years. He estimated that it would cost $100 per square meter to build and that the annual operations and maintenance costs would be $1 per square meter of floor space.

• Martin thought that the parcel of land would be large enough to build a shopping center with as much as 60,000 square meters of retail space. He also thought that Magna should make a one time upfront payment to lease the parcel of land for the expected 20-year life of the project.

• Martin thought the amount retailers in the shopping center would be willing to pay per square meter of floor space would be a decreasing function of the total size of the shopping center. Martin did some initial work estimating the likely relationship between what tenants would be willing to pay for retail space and the size of the shopping center. Specifically, he thought there was a 50% chance the true relationship would be:

r = 60 - 0.001s

and a 50% chance that the true relationship would be

r = 50 - 0.001s

where ris the rental rate per square meter of floor space and sis the total size of the shopping center in square meters. Furthermore, Martin was going to assume that once the shopping center had been built, the realized relationship between rand swould remain unchanged for the next 20 years.

• Martin was planning to ignore discount rates and the time value of money in his initial evaluation of the project. He was going to treat all of the project's costs and benefits equally no matter when they occurred in the life of the project; that is, he was going to treat a $1 cost incurred (or revenue received) at the start of the project the same as a $1 cost incurred (or revenue received) during any other year of the project's life. At this point, you tell Evelyn that doing this could lead to misleading conclusions about the real value of the project and how much Magna should be willing to pay to lease the land. Evelyn agrees, but says she thinks this approach is good enough for a preliminary evaluation.

• Martin had contacted a local consultant, David Smith, who could do some additional market research to accurately forecast which of the demand curves (i.e., r = 60 - 0.001sor r = 50 - 0.001s) would actually be realized if the shopping center was built. Martin was trying to find out if it was worth hiring David at all, and if he could be hired then what was the maximum consulting fee that Magna should offer.

After briefing you on Martin's findings, Evelyn wishes you luck and says she looks forward to reading your report in a week's time. She tells you that the main body of the report must be short (i.e., 1000 words at most excluding the title page and any appendices), to the point, and not overly technical. Nevertheless, your conclusions and recommendations must be based on a rigorous analysis of the available information and you should provide a concise summary of any technical details in an appendix. Evelyn also tells you to be explicit about any important limitations your analysis might have. Finally, Evelyn tells you that she likes her reports to be broken up into sections with sensible and self-explanatory headings.