Pre-Development

Planning new facilities, expanding existing ones, or renovating requires specialized guidance and resources.

What is Pre-Development?

“Pre-development” describes the phase of a capital project between the origination of the concept and the initiation of design. It is the period of gathering information, exploring options, and making decisions about the direction of a project. Inadequate planning during this phase can result in projects that experience significant cost overruns. The ideal outcome of pre-development is a sustainable capital project.


Welcome to Pre-D

We are excited you are here. It means you are thinking about your space and how it contributes to meeting your mission.

Considering a change in the place where you carry out your mission can be a daunting task for your whole team. We appreciate the pressures and impulse to act quickly. Still, this is the time to move thoughtfully and carefully. With any large project, we want to ensure that when it’s complete it is the right size for your mission and the people you serve. At Foraker, we call this a “go slow to go fast” approach.

We are ready to walk you through all the steps. Most organizations take from six months to three years or more in the pre-development process. How fast or slow you go is up to you and your team. Let’s get started.


Who Will Benefit From This Site?

This site is primarily designed with two groups in mind: (1) board and staff members who are not experts in the necessary steps of capital projects, and (2) program officers of funding entities who want to ensure that any investment in a project is a carefully considered and wise one.

Board and staff. Our intention is not to make anyone an expert in all the steps of pre-development but instead to provide you with information to ask helpful questions, hire the right support, slow down when necessary, and provide you with resources you might need along the way.

Program officers. We know that part of your job is to ask hard questions before making substantial capital investments. We want this site to be the place you can send potential grantees to find tools and resources that bring clarity to projects and ultimately assist you to make informed funding decisions.

Many others will find value here, too. In this toolkit, we have assembled a range of resources that offer helpful information to any entity planning a capital project. This could include state government, municipalities, and smaller local governments; Alaska Native regional nonprofits and village corporations; educational and healthcare facilities; and many more. It is also is a guide for community members serving on a building committee or capital campaign committee, and any design or construction professional who wants to learn more about pre-development and sustainable capital projects.

Ultimately the community benefits. When organizations embarking on a capital project carefully consider the information we’ve gathered here, they have a greater opportunity to serve their mission and their community for some time to come.