ILLUSTRATIVE SAMPLE — NOT A REAL CLIENT, PROPERTY, OR OFFER. A fabricated engagement built to demonstrate Rook’s representation and deal-analysis work product. Sites, tenants, and figures are invented; market data is sourced and cited. Not investment, legal, or tax advice.
ROOK
REAL ESTATE DEAL ANALYSIS & FINANCIAL MODELING
Ember Coop Fire-Grilled Chicken — Miami-Dade Drive-Thru Entry
Tenant Representation Package — Sabal Point Restaurant Group, LLC · build-to-suit ground lease versus second-generation conversion
SUBMARKETMiami-Dade County
UNDERWRITTEN AUV$2,814,971
RECOMMENDED RENT$58.00/SF NNN
NPV @ 9.0% / 15 YR$1,825,445
§1 · Assignment
The most site-constrained brief in retail
The tenant. Sabal Point Restaurant Group, LLC — an eleven-unit franchisee of Ember Coop Fire-Grilled Chicken, expanding from Broward and Palm Beach into Miami-Dade under a four-unit development agreement.
The requirement. 2,600 SF freestanding on a 0.85–1.05 acre pad, tandem dual-order-point drive-thru, twelve-car stack. Sixty-eight percent of sales arrive through the window.
The constraint. A site that cannot queue twelve cars cannot open — regardless of rent, traffic count, or trade area. That single gate is what makes this the hardest assignment in tenant representation.
Underwritten AUV
$2.81M
547 transactions/day × $14.10 × 365
Required stack
12 cars
240 linear feet — 2.4× the Miami 21 code minimum
Miami-Dade mobility fee
$90.48
per SF, fast-food with drive-thru, Context Zone 3
Two strategies were screened against each other, not in sequence: a build-to-suit ground lease on a raw pad, and a second-generation conversion of an existing drive-thru envelope — a former drive-in bank branch, a coffee unit, or a dark QSR. In a 3.0%-vacancy county with a $90-per-foot impact fee on new drive-thru construction, the existing envelope is the premium product and the raw pad is the fallback. That inverts the conventional development instinct.
§2 · Thesis
Cash rent is half the story
A drive-thru QSR is a capital-heavy business wearing a retail lease. The tenant funds the building, the canopy, the dual order point, the kitchen line and — in Miami-Dade — a six-figure mobility fee. That capital has to earn a return before a dollar of rent is paid. Any comparison of a ground-up pad against a second-generation conversion that stops at cash rent reaches the wrong answer, because the pad’s cheap rent is bought with expensive capital.
Rook prices the capital. Amortized at the operator’s 9.0% cost of capital over the fifteen-year term, tenant capital converts into an annual charge directly comparable to rent — and the ranking inverts.
Metric
Site A — BTS ground-lease pad
Site C — second-gen conversion
Tenant capital
$2,389,497
$1,997,864
Annual cash occupancy (rent + NNN)
$222,589
$239,195
Cash occupancy-cost ratio
7.91%
8.50%
Capital rent equivalent (CRF 0.12406)
$296,438
$247,853
Total economic occupancy
18.44%
17.31%
On cash rent the pad wins by 59 basis points. On total economic cost the conversion wins by 113. The pad’s advantage is an accounting artifact of who holds the capital, and it reverses the moment the capital is priced.
§3 · Headline
The recommendation
Recommended site
Site C
Marlin Point — second-generation drive-thru conversion, US-1 at SW 152 St
NPV @ 9.0%, 15 yr, net of capital
$1.83M
$251,671 ahead of the build-to-suit pad
Year-2 cash-on-cash / payback
21.0%
4.76-year simple payback vs 5.47 on the pad
Opening offer
$58.00/SF
$168,200/yr. Cash occupancy is exactly 8.50% of AUV — the franchisor’s approval gate. Not a posture; the number the brand’s real-estate committee is solving for.
Settlement ceiling
$66.00/SF
$191,400/yr. 9.32% occupancy, 19.98% cash-on-cash, 5.01-year payback. Full negotiating authority to here.
Walk-away
$72.59/SF
$210,502/yr. Above this the franchisor will not approve the site at any return. The landlord’s $74.00 ask sits outside the range.
The gap between the ask and the walk-away is $4,098 a year — the landlord is asking roughly 2% more than the maximum any version of this tenant can pay. A reported Miami-Dade drive-thru conversion transacted at $72/SF against a $95/SF list, a 24% concession. The concession required here is 11%.
§4 · Queue Design
Why twelve cars, and why the code says five
This is the gate that decides the assignment, so it is derived rather than asserted. Peak-hour drive-thru volume is 12% of daily transactions; the peak fifteen minutes carries 35% of the peak hour; opening-period volumes run 1.8× stabilized. The window cycle is the bottleneck. Treating it as an M/M/1 server, the 95th-percentile queue is n95 = ln(0.05) ÷ ln(ρ), where ρ = λ ÷ μ.
Configuration
Scenario
λ cars/hr
μ cars/hr
ρ
95th-pct queue
Single order point (35 s cycle)
Stabilized
62.5
102.9
0.608
6.0 cars
Single order point (35 s cycle)
Opening period (1.8×)
112.5
102.9
1.094
UNSTABLE
Tandem dual order point (24 s)
Stabilized
62.5
150.0
0.417
3.4 cars
Tandem dual order point (24 s)
Opening period (1.8×)
112.5
150.0
0.750
10.4 cars
The stabilized run rate does not justify twelve cars
At steady state a single order point handles the peak with a six-car queue. A broker who sizes the site to stabilized volume hands the client a site that works in year three and fails in month two.
The opening period is the design condition
At ρ = 1.094 the single-order-point system is saturated: arrivals exceed service capacity, the queue is unbounded, and the only limit is how many drivers give up. The franchisor’s twelve-car spec is the tandem configuration’s 10.4-car result plus a 15% design buffer.
Miami 21 Article 6, Table 13 requires five reservoir spaces — one at the window, three before, one after. One hundred linear feet. The franchisor specification is 2.4× the code minimum, and Miami-Dade’s unincorporated code sets no numeric restaurant stacking standard at all. Code compliance is not evidence that a site works. A drive-thru can satisfy every zoning requirement and remain commercially unusable.
§5 · Unit Economics
AUV built from transactions upward
Daypart
Tx/day
Check
Sales/day
Breakfast 06:00–10:30
97
$8.75
$848.75
Lunch 10:30–14:00
176
$15.50
$2,728.00
Afternoon 14:00–17:00
82
$11.25
$922.50
Dinner 17:00–21:00
138
$18.00
$2,484.00
Late 21:00–24:00
54
$13.50
$729.00
Total / blended
547
$14.10
$7,712.25
AUV = $7,712.25 × 365 = $2,814,971. Drive-thru share 68% = 372 cars/day. Calibrated between Panda Express ($2.592M) and Chipotle ($3.2M) — QSR 50, 2024 data.
Store-level P&L
% AUV
Amount
Food and paper
30.5%
$858,566
Labor incl. taxes and benefits
27.5%
$774,117
Controllables
9.5%
$267,422
Franchise royalty
5.0%
$140,749
National ad fund
4.0%
$112,599
EBITDAR — available for occupancy
23.5%
$661,518
Everything the site can pay — base rent, percentage rent, taxes, insurance, CAM, and the return on the tenant’s own capital — comes out of $661,518. The negotiation is a fight over how that number is divided between the landlord and the tenant’s balance sheet.
§6 · Signature Exhibit
Maximum supportable rent, walk-away rent, indifference rent
Three numbers a negotiator can use, each shown as a formula.
The build-to-suit inverts. Its maximum supportable ground rent ($161,570) sits below the rent the 8.5% occupancy gate would allow ($169,434) — the capital hurdle binds first. The site could pass the franchisor’s occupancy test at a rent the balance sheet cannot fund. Against a $152,750 ask that is only $8,820 of headroom, and the breakeven AUV is $2,777,438, just 1.3% below plan.
Indifference rent = $69.03/SF. (Site A cash occupancy + Site A capital rent equivalent) − Site C capital rent equivalent − Site C NNN = ($222,589 + $296,438) − $247,853 − $70,995 = $200,179 ÷ 2,900 SF. Below $69.03/SF the conversion beats the pad on total economic cost. The negotiating team should be told this number, not just the walk-away.
§7 · Capital
Build-to-suit budget versus conversion budget
Line item
Site A — build-to-suit
Site C — conversion
Building shell, MEP, interior fit (2,600 SF @ $340/SF)
$884,000
—
Interior conversion / tenant fit (2,900 SF @ $255/SF)
Drive-thru: dual order point, canopy, boards, technology
$118,000
$142,000
Site work, paving, retention / queue reconfiguration
$168,000
$88,000
Miami-Dade impact / mobility fees
$242,657
$212,624
A&E, permitting, traffic study, entitlement
$185,000
$76,000
Signage
$96,000
$88,000
FF&E, kitchen line, POS, drive-thru technology
$428,000
$428,000
Pre-opening and franchise fee
$140,000
$140,000
Contingency @ 8% of hard cost + FF&E
$127,840
$117,240
Less landlord TI / work allowance @ $35/SF
—
($101,500)
Total tenant capital
$2,389,497 · $919/SF
$1,997,864 · $689/SF
Rent equivalent — capital × CRF(9.0%, 15) = 0.12406
$296,438/yr
$247,853/yr
Miami-Dade charges a fast-casual restaurant $18.801/SF and a fast-food restaurant with a drive-thru $90.478/SF — 4.8× more. The county prices the trip-generation externality of the drive-through directly. A national cost guide quoting Florida impact fees at $7,000–$15,700 per 2,500 SF understates this line by roughly $200,000. The conversion does not escape the fee — it pays the differential from the drive-in bank rate, which is 79% of the greenfield charge.
The conversion can pay $48,586 a year more in cash rent than the pad and leave the operator in exactly the same economic position — $16.75 per square foot of additional rent capacity, created purely by not building a building.
§8 · Site Matrix
Four candidates, two gates
Gates first, scoring second. A site failing any hard gate is removed and is not scored, because a nine-car queue does not become a twelve-car queue because the landlord offered four months free.
Gate
Site A — Cordova Crossing Pad
Site B — Ridgeline Pad
Site C — Marlin Point Conversion
Site D — Allapattah Endcap
Achievable stack (≥12 cars)
14 — PASS
9 — FAIL
13 — PASS
6 — FAIL
Drive-through without a hearing
Administrative
Administrative
Existing lawful use
Warrant — FAIL
Access: 2 cuts, 1 full-movement
2 / 1 FM
RIRO only — FAIL
2 / 1 FM
Shared — FAIL
Frontage AADT (FDOT 2025)
70,500
52,500
57,500
28,500
Hours to 23:00 or later
PASS
PASS
PASS
22:00 — FAIL
Environmental
Clean
Open REC — FAIL
Clean
Clean
Result
ADVANCE
ELIMINATED
ADVANCE
ELIMINATED
Weighted criterion
Weight
Site A
Site C
Achievable stack margin over spec
14
126
112
Access, curb cuts, signalization, side of road
14
126
112
Frontage AADT and visibility
12
120
96
Trade-area demographics and daytime population
11
99
88
Total economic occupancy cost
16
96
128
Capital intensity and payback
12
60
108
Schedule to open and entitlement risk
11
66
110
Signage rights
6
54
42
Co-tenancy and competitive density
4
24
24
Total
100
771 — 77.1%
820 — 82.0%
Site D’s modeled NPV of $1,294,895 ranks third of four — and is unachievable. It presumes an AUV a six-car queue cannot deliver and ignores both the Warrant probability and the 22:00 hours restriction. It is shown here specifically to demonstrate what a scoring model produces when it is fed a site that should have been gated out. That is why gates precede scoring.
§9 · Corridors
Miami-Dade drive-thru geography
Every count below is a specific FDOT 2025 count-site record, identified so it can be independently retrieved. K is the design-hour factor; D is the directional distribution factor.
SR-94 · North Kendall Drive
Segment
Site
AADT
D
SW 152 → SW 137 Ave
871080
59,500
61.0
SW 137 → SW 127 Ave
870060
70,500
61.0
SW 127 → SW 117 Ave
870062
87,000
61.0
SW 117 → SW 107 Ave
870592
50,000
61.0
US-41 · SW 8th Street (Tamiami Trail)
Segment
Site
AADT
D
SW 127 Ave → HEFT
872561
47,500
61.0
HEFT → SW 107 Ave
870090
52,500
61.0
SW 87 Ave → SR-826
870092
59,000
61.0
US-1 · South Dixie Highway
Segment
Site
AADT
D
SW 112 Ave → SW 183 St
870346
50,500
61.0
→ SW 136 St (Site C)
870332
57,500
61.0
SW 136 → SW 112 St
870014
55,500
61.0
SW 112 → SW 98 St
870110
82,500
61.0
Okeechobee Road & NW 27th Avenue
Segment
Site
AADT
D
Okeechobee: NW 72 → NW 57 Ave
871172
66,500
55.0
NW 27 Ave: NW 20 St → W 36 St
875005
28,500
55.0
NW 27 Ave: NW 119 → NW 135 St
870128
30,000
55.0
Reading the D-factor. The southern and western arterials all carry D = 61.0 — 61% of design-hour traffic moves in the dominant direction. On that split, the wrong side of a divided arterial forfeits roughly a fifth of design-hour exposure before the access restriction is even considered. Ember Coop is 11.0% breakfast against 32.2% dinner, so it is an evening-side concept: the correct side of a 61-D arterial is the side carrying the PM peak. Okeechobee Road’s flatter D = 55.0 removes that problem and introduces another — at 6.0% trucks it is a freight corridor that converts poorly to a family dinner concept.
§10 · Market
Miami-Dade fundamentals
Miami-Dade retail vacancy, Q2 2026
3.0%
Lowest of the three South Florida counties — Colliers, released 2026-07-16
Average asking rent
$42.50
Per SF, up 2.6% vs Q1 2026 — 54% above Broward
Net absorption, Q2 2026
+378,795
Square feet, against 1.3M+ SF under construction
Restaurant leasing bands
Band
Submarkets
NNN ask
Class A
Brickell, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Aventura
$120–$150
Secondary
Wynwood, Doral, Little Havana, Design District
$85–$110
Neighborhood
West Kendall, Sweetwater, Hialeah
$50–$75
At $2.81M AUV, a $120/SF Class A rent is 12.4% of AUV before NNN against an 8.5% gate. Brickell is not an expensive option for this concept; it is an unavailable one.
Net lease pricing, Q2 2026
Sector
Cap rate
QSR — corporate guarantee
5.85%
QSR — franchisee guarantee
6.85%
Ground leases (McDonald’s / Chick-fil-A)
4.45%
Single-tenant net lease retail
6.60%
The 100-basis-point spread is the price of a franchisee covenant — roughly 15% of asset value on identical rent. That is why the LOI offers a corporate guaranty with a defined 60-month burn-off rather than resisting it. The guaranty is cheaper than the rent it buys back.
The second-generation pipeline is real and it is growing. FDIC data show 13,588 fewer bank branches between year-end 2010 and year-end 2024, including 1,354 in 2024. Six restaurant chains announced roughly 950–1,050 U.S. closures for 2025–2026 — Wendy’s 300–350, Papa Johns 300, Pizza Hut 250, Jack in the Box 50–100. Papa Johns identified its cohort as units over a decade old averaging under $600,000 in volume: envelopes that failed for reasons unrelated to the site. Meanwhile new drive-thru creation is constrained by the Urban Development Boundary, a $90.478/SF mobility fee, and a regulatory trend running unambiguously against it. The stock of Miami-Dade drive-thru envelopes is approximately fixed and slowly contracting.
§11 · Sensitivity
Where the deal stops working
Cash occupancy-cost ratio — base rent × AUV
Base rent
$2.25M
$2.45M
$2.65M
$2.815M
$3.00M
$3.20M
$50/SF
9.60%
8.82%
8.15%
7.67%
7.20%
6.75%
$54/SF
10.12%
9.29%
8.59%
8.09%
7.59%
7.11%
$58/SF
10.63%
9.76%
9.03%
8.50%
7.97%
7.47%
$62/SF
11.15%
10.24%
9.46%
8.91%
8.36%
7.84%
$66/SF
11.66%
10.71%
9.90%
9.32%
8.75%
8.20%
$70/SF
12.18%
11.18%
10.34%
9.73%
9.13%
8.56%
$74/SF
12.69%
11.66%
10.78%
10.15%
9.52%
8.92%
Green ≤ 8.50% clears the franchisor target. Red > 10.00% is unapprovable at any return.
Year-2 unlevered cash-on-cash — base rent × AUV
Base rent
$2.25M
$2.45M
$2.65M
$2.815M
$3.00M
$3.20M
$50/SF
15.65%
18.01%
20.36%
22.30%
24.48%
26.83%
$58/SF
14.49%
16.85%
19.20%
21.14%
23.32%
25.67%
$66/SF
13.33%
15.68%
18.04%
19.98%
22.15%
24.51%
$74/SF
12.17%
14.52%
16.88%
18.82%
20.99%
23.35%
At $58/SF the 18.0% hurdle survives an AUV of roughly $2.51 million — a 10.8% miss. At $66/SF that tolerance narrows to about $2.65 million, a 5.9% miss. Every four dollars per square foot of rent conceded costs roughly 250 basis points of AUV tolerance. That, rather than the rent itself, is what the settlement ceiling protects.
§12 · NPV
Fifteen-year comparison, net of capital
Candidate
Tenant capital
Yr-1 rent
Avg effective rent
Yr-2 CoC
Payback
NPV @ 9.0%
Site C — Marlin Point Conversion
$1,997,864
$168,200
$63.99/SF
21.01%
4.76 yr
$1,825,445
Site A — Cordova Crossing Pad
$2,389,497
$152,750
$64.82/SF
18.27%
5.47 yr
$1,573,774
Site D — Allapattah Endcap (eliminated)
$1,746,000
$159,800
$75.03/SF
19.09%
5.24 yr
$1,294,895
Site B — Ridgeline Pad (eliminated)
$2,295,000
$138,000
$60.90/SF
13.40%
7.46 yr
$501,390
Site C — conversion
$1,825,445
Site A — BTS pad
$1,573,774
Site D — endcap (gated out)
$1,294,895
Site B — pad (gated out)
$501,390
Modeled over a common fifteen-year horizon at a 9.0% discount rate, with sales growing 2.5% annually from Year 2, NNN escalating 3.5% annually, and rent escalating 10% every five years. Cash flows are unit EBITDAR less total cash occupancy; Year 0 is the tenant capital outflow. The workbook recalculates dynamically and returned zero error cells on a LibreOffice headless recalculation.
§13 · Terms
LOI posture — both structures
Structure A — second-generation lease (preferred)
Primary term
15 years
Options
Four × 5 years
Base rent, Yrs 1–5
$58.00/SF · $168,200
Base rent, Yrs 6–10 / 11–15
$63.80 / $70.18
Escalation
10% every 5 years
Percentage rent
6% over fixed $3.2M
Free rent
5 months
Landlord allowance
$35/SF · $101,500
Landlord work
Vault removal, roof, slab, parking, utilities
Structure B — build-to-suit ground lease
Primary term
20 years
Options
Four × 5 years
Ground rent, Yrs 1–5
$152,750
Escalation
10% every 5 years
Percentage rent
6% over fixed $3.4M
Landlord allowance
None — site work only
Landlord work
Pad to subgrade, utilities to boundary, retention, access drives
Impact fees
Tenant — est. $242,657
Provisions the drive-thru actually turns on
Drive-thru operating rights. 06:00–24:00 seven days; right to install, relocate and replace order points, canopies, boards and speaker systems; right to stripe and re-configure the queue, escape and bypass lanes; landlord may not adopt center rules restricting hours, queue routing, order-point location or speaker volume within code.
Signage. Two illuminated building elevations; a top-panel monument position with a minimum 60 SF face specified in the lease — not “subject to availability”; all queue wayfinding and directional signage.
Exclusive use. 1,500-foot radius against chicken-primary concepts and drive-thru QSR; remedy is 50% rent abatement and, after 180 days, termination.
Zoning contingency. Permitted by right or administrative approval only; no warrant, exception or variance; twelve-car queue confirmed in writing by a licensed traffic engineer; no recorded exclusive or plat note restricting the use.
Franchisor approval contingency. Written site approval within 60 days; Tenant may terminate and recover any deposit if not obtained.
Mobility fee condition. Written County determination required; landlord contributes 50% of the differential capped at $106,300; Tenant may terminate if the actual differential exceeds $260,000.
Percentage rent is offered at a fixed $3,200,000 breakpoint, not a natural one. At the opening rent a natural breakpoint computes to $2,803,333 — below plan AUV — which would convert percentage rent from a landlord upside participation into an immediate rent increase. A fixed breakpoint 13.7% above plan makes the landlord a participant in genuine outperformance rather than a co-owner of the base case.
§14 · Risk
What could break this
Risk
Exposure
Mitigation
Existing envelope cannot deliver a 12-car queue after reconfiguration
Deal-fatal
Licensed traffic engineer’s queue-storage study and franchisor site pre-approval as express LOI contingencies, before any non-refundable deposit
Mobility fee differential larger than modeled
$212,624 base
Written determination from Miami-Dade RER before lease execution; landlord contributes 50% capped at $106,300; termination right above $260,000
Landlord holds at the $74.00/SF ask
$4,098/yr above walk-away
Site A ground lease held live and visible through negotiation; walk-away computed and communicated internally before the first offer
Vault removal and structural condition
$68,000 modeled
Landlord obligation in the LOI; slab, roof, structure and parking field delivered in working order with a 12-month warranty
South Florida insurance escalation above 3.5%/yr
20–30% observed over 2 yrs
Separately stated insurance; controllable CAM capped at 4%/yr cumulative; no capital pass-through
AUV underperformance
~60 bps of occupancy per $200K
Hurdle survives a 10.8% AUV miss at the opening rent; fixed percentage-rent breakpoint prevents compounding the downside
Property tax reassessment on change of use
$45,910 modeled
Carried at full just value × 17.3245 mills, not at the seller’s in-place assessment
Competing drive-thru opens inside the primary ring
Trade-area dilution
1,500-foot exclusive; category rather than spatial differentiation — a brand requiring clear air will not open in Miami-Dade
Cross-access easement prohibits queue storage in the shared aisle
Operating covenant default
All REAs, declarations and plat notes delivered within 10 business days; queueing right expressly granted in the lease
§15 · Verification
Sources and math
Every figure in this deck either cites a named source with a 2026-08-06 retrieval date or shows its formula. The tenant, the brand, the four candidate sites and the unit-level operating assumptions are fabricated. The traffic counts, zoning provisions, fee schedules, millage rates, cap rates, market rents, construction cost ranges and demographics are real, sourced and dated.
FDOT Transportation Data & Analytics, Annual Average Daily Traffic feature service (RCI_Layers/FeatureServer/0), 2025 records, and Florida Traffic Online ·
Miami 21 Zoning Code, as amended April 2012, Article 6 Table 13 and Article 1 definitions ·
Miami-Dade County Code Ch. 33 Art. XXXIII(K) Standard Urban Center District note [9], and § 33-124 off-street parking standards ·
Miami-Dade County Impact Fee Rate Schedule, mobility rates effective 12/31/2023–12/30/2027, fire/police/school/parks effective 12/31/2024–12/30/2027 ·
Colliers Miami-Dade retail Q1 and Q2 2026, the latter released 2026-07-16 and reported by Commercial Observer ·
The Boulder Group Q2 2026 Net Lease Market Report, reported 2026-07-07 ·
QSR Magazine / Intouch Insight, 2025 QSR Drive-Thru Report, and QSR Magazine, The 2025 QSR 50 ·
Paytronix, restaurant rent as a percentage of sales, 2025-03-27 ·
WFO Construction QSR construction cost guide, January 2026 ·
Atlantic Commercial Advisors, Miami-Dade restaurant leasing, 2026-07-20 (broker commentary, not an audited survey) ·
Justin Crow / Mattis Advisors, Miami-Dade retail storefront pricing, August 2026 ·
Jorge Guanche, Miami-Dade millage compilation, 2026-05-23 ·
Bisnow, bank branch retreat, 2025-04-14, citing FDIC and OCC data ·
Restaurant Dive, 2026 chain closures, 2026-03-19 ·
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 1-year and 5-year estimates, via Census Reporter.
All retrieved 2026-08-06.
Verify all code, fee and market provisions with the governing jurisdiction and with current CBRE / JLL / Colliers broker surveys before relying on this analysis for any live transaction.