Back to the font of knowledge.

One appraisal assignment that I am glad/sad I didn't get.

My coworker is appraising an outdoor shooting range. I don't have a lot of specifics about the range itself, but it is an active shooting range with customers and all. The guy wants it appraised as a shooting range.

For the most part, it is a piece of land, not proximate to anything, with some berms and a few buildings as office/storage. I don't think the value is much more than that.

So our searches for shooting ranges that have sold have come up with nothing.

Knowing the membership here, is there anyone who has or knows of the purchase or sale of an active shooting range?

Is he appraising the land or the business or both?
Either way you have to look at them independently, IMO.

smschulz

I understand your question, but he is only appraising the real estate. But the real estate is improved with a shooting range.

The easiest method would be to appraise the land and add the contributory value of the improvements. How much is a berm worth? I am not sure of the structural improvements, they could be a pole barn and a double wide.

Didn't the state of Florida purchase the Teneroc range? Or have they always owned it, and just subcontracted out the operations.

My thought is, there are a couple of public ranges in Florida that are operated by the state or county and there may be public financial information on them.

Teneroc is FWC and Markham Park is Broward County Parks and Recreation.

A bunch of us are members of various private outdoor ranges here, and may be able to make introduction to members of our boards of directors if such information would be useful to you. I am a member at Eustis, and could try to get you in touch with the management if that would help. Eustis has done some recent renovations, and thus may have some data on the cost of berms, pole buildings for shade, club house, and so forth. They may also have budgetary information on lead remediation and the like if the environmental impact needs to be taken into account.

There are thousands of pounds of lead on those sites. Sometimes ranges auction of the berms to recyclers, and sometimes they scrape the berms and fields with a bulldozer and run the dirt/lead mix through one of those portable centrifuges to separate out the components. The lead is then sold, and the dirt replaced.

quote:

Originally posted by dlc444:
smschulz

I understand your question, but he is only appraising the real estate. But the real estate is improved with a shooting range.

The easiest method would be to appraise the land and add the contributory value of the improvements. How much is a berm worth? I am not sure of the structural improvements, they could be a pole barn and a double wide.

For the berms, it might be worth paying a conservation contractor for an hour of their time to give an estimate of the cost to build them, and if it appears that outside dirt was brought in for the value of the soil. Then I guess you could somewhat intuit the value-added part of that improvement.

ArtieS

I believe we met at the Grayguns course in Orlando many years ago.

We have limited sources of information to get comparable sales. I will look up the Teneroc sale, but purchases by governmental entities are rarely at market.

One of the local sporting clays places here sold five or six years ago, but I am not sure what the specifics are. I have a call into the owner to see if it was going concern and if so how the land portion was allocated.

If any of the private outdoor ranges were purchased as such, they would have likely allocated the land in a separate transaction in order to save on documentary stamps (don't want to pay taxes you don't have to).

If you have contacts, I would be happy to contact them.

As an aside, I will help my coworker with the inspection, bringing a few toys along to ensure the functionality of the place.

ETA: Looks like the state has owned Teneroc since 1982. They may farm out operations though, not sure

quote:

Originally posted by Opus Dei:

quote:

Originally posted by dlc444:
smschulz

I understand your question, but he is only appraising the real estate. But the real estate is improved with a shooting range.

The easiest method would be to appraise the land and add the contributory value of the improvements. How much is a berm worth? I am not sure of the structural improvements, they could be a pole barn and a double wide.

For the berms, it might be worth paying a conservation contractor for an hour of their time to give an estimate of the cost to build them, and if it appears that outside dirt was brought in for the value of the soil. Then I guess you could somewhat intuit the value-added part of that improvement.

and would you add in an approximate value of the lead in the berms,

and/or the cost of extraction/cleanup taken out of the price??

It's worth what the land is worth plus buildings.
The buildings, are they on the tax record? Are the permanent or portable / shed type? Do they have power / water ?

quote:

Originally posted by lyman:

quote:

Originally posted by Opus Dei:

quote:

Originally posted by dlc444:
smschulz

I understand your question, but he is only appraising the real estate. But the real estate is improved with a shooting range.

The easiest method would be to appraise the land and add the contributory value of the improvements. How much is a berm worth? I am not sure of the structural improvements, they could be a pole barn and a double wide.

For the berms, it might be worth paying a conservation contractor for an hour of their time to give an estimate of the cost to build them, and if it appears that outside dirt was brought in for the value of the soil. Then I guess you could somewhat intuit the value-added part of that improvement.

and would you add in an approximate value of the lead in the berms,

and/or the cost of extraction/cleanup taken out of the price??

Heh; the berms might be tires covered with dirt. I remember when the Alamodome was built. One of the old block stucco houses bought to be demolished turned out to have been built not out of cinder block, but batteries. So, there was environmental remediation work in a place you wouldn't have thought.

I have cc'd you on an email to the president and treasurer of my club. Hopefully they can be of some help.

A

There are issues unrelated to the price of comparable land you need to consider.

Here are a few things to consider.

1. Will the local.gov allow it to continue as a range once ownership changes? There are lots of places rezoning existing ranges that were there prior to the current master plan that on change of ownership are immediately rezoned to an incompatible land use. In some cases this is actually a reasonable decision (yeah, yeah... burn the heretic) because down range properties are potential bullet traps. This happened near here a few years ago when a police range was having rounds escape and hit nearby structures.

2. Is the design of the range sound? For example, are there baffles to prevent a bullet, fired from the firing line from escaping the property? How tall are the berms? What material is used for the impact berm (eg, is it full of rocks that pose a ricochet hazard)? Is there an adequate range safety fan?

3. Has the range been operated IAW EPA's guidance on the management of outdoor ranges? If not, is there any reason to fear impact to sensitive environments like wetlands or T&E species habitat? Moreover, is there any reason to think there is an actual or potential threat to human health or the environment? That a really important element in valuing the land.

I've been working the intersection of ranges, munitions and the environment for nigh on 28 years, and have seen more and more efforts to close poorly designed or poorly operated ranges.

If you want to discuss, my eddress is in my profile.


ETA: It's tough to stump SIGforum. The knowledge base is both broad and deep.

ETA2: One more issue-is there a federal firearms license involved? That's an issue I know about too.

Beware of the EPA costs as well as local regulations.

Don't buy a Superfund site and get stuck with the cleanup costs.

I would hire the biggest tree-hugging Pinko inspector in the world to check it out to make certain someone isn't pawning off their headache on you.

Paranoia is your friend.


Bruce

Deleted . . .

I don't think I really addressed the OP's specific question.

Since you said you aren’t placing a value on the business,just the land, it’s fairly simple.
Acreage, plus marketable improvements ( if any) minus remediation.
I can’t imagine the value of the lead will approach the costs to remove the hazardous materials and get some sort of certification to make it marketable property.
The shooting range “improvements” are only improvements to someone else using it as a range. Berms and such aren’t of much value to other residential or commercial users.

 
A local (Surprise AZ) gun club closed about 12 years ago. It was right next to a Sheriff's range, and the county (both were on county land) wanted to move the Sheriff's range, and reclaim the land. So the Surprise club had to close. They chose not to relocate in Maricopa County, due to expenses. Most of them joined the Wickenburg club instead. Before they could close and turn it over to the county, the club had to spend a couple of million dollars for lead reclamation, (per EPA). If your purchase is going to involve rezoning for no range, be aware of the cost of cleaning up the old range.
 

The NRA could be a source of relevant information. I know they have assisted considerably with lead mitigation at two gun clubs I belong to. This involves excavating to an EPA prescribed depth, carting soil away for controlled incineration, and bringing it back to the club for re-application to the topsoil. Mega $$$ in both cases I am aware of.

Shooting Sports Foundation may also collect useful data.

I believe the land could have EXTREMELY diminished value due to lead contamination and potential clean up cost.

Unless lead recyclers dig it out for free???

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
I believe the land could have EXTREMELY diminished value due to lead contamination and potential clean up cost.

Unless lead recyclers dig it out for free???

Our club just finished a major lead reclamation project. As I understand it from the meetings, the lead recyclers did the work for a percentage of the money earned from the scrap. The remainder went to the club. The club earned a pretty penny on it.

http://flosmerconish.idxbroker...-BLACK-EDDY-PA-18972

Here is an active listing for a summer camp in PA with a shooting range. Not quite the same as what OP asked but ~27acres for 700k.

quote:

Originally posted by Oat_Action_Man:

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
I believe the land could have EXTREMELY diminished value due to lead contamination and potential clean up cost.

Unless lead recyclers dig it out for free???

Our club just finished a major lead reclamation project. As I understand it from the meetings, the lead recyclers did the work for a percentage of the money earned from the scrap. The remainder went to the club. The club earned a pretty penny on it.

IIRC the club I belong to did this a few years back,

however that was the rifle/pistol ranges,
the trap/skeet fields impact area is a forested area on club property, that was obviously not reclaimed