Is there some suggested price per acre to look for when looking for a self storage site for development ?

Go to city hall. There will be a desk for development...what name it is, well, that will change depend on the municipality. Talk to the staff and tell them what you want, and they'll send you to the right place. You want to talk to engineering and development staff and ask them who the best developers are. They will recommend who you should meet, and maybe even introduce you. When you are changing land use designations like this, it is very helpful to be familiar with city staff. The staff are the people who write the reports that go to council. Council depends on those reports for information to help them decide which way to vote. Ideally, you want a developer who is well known at city call, is used to working with staff, and is appreciated for their attitude. Density bonusing can be achieved in exchange for amenities, and if your developer has a history of making these kinds of horse trades with the city, all the better. What you don't want is a partner who gets the staff's backs up, and doesn't know how to get the best bang for their buck out of the development. Six years of city hall experience and in the construction field on my end.

There are lots of unexpected costs with land development and new construction. Examples include soft costs (arch, engineering, surveying, permit costs, etc) and hard costs (connecting utilities, clearing land, etc). Always have a reasonable buffer to take into account any unexpected costs. Best of luck!

Of course and have in the past.. With FB's Open graph search you can laser target buyers and weed out tire kickers.. This is a no brainer :)

Commercial real estate is completely different animal than residential. Loop.net is a popular site where you can review commercial deals. Outside of that you need to find pocket listings and build relationships with brokers and Realtors that list commercial properties. You can also go to http://www.Listsource.com and pull criteria to send out a mailer to a very targeted list of owners.

This should help you out: 1. Property Development for Beginners: A Beginners Guide to Property Development by Steve Chandler http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1482580551/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1482580551&linkCode=as2&tag=pittspropedea-20">Property Development for Beginners: A Beginners Guide to Property Development</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=pittspropedea-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1482580551 2. Real Estate Development: Principles and Process by Mike E. Miles http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874209714/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0874209714&linkCode=as2&tag=pittspropedea-20">Real Estate Development: Principles and Process</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=pittspropedea-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0874209714 3. http://www.masterycoachingterence.com/