What Is a Phase-Zero Memo?
A Phase-Zero memo is the first-pass site decision record a development team should read before spending serious diligence money.
For development executives, acquisitions teams, site-selection managers, and analysts deciding whether a candidate site deserves the next diligence dollar.
The job
The memo answers a narrow commercial question: should the team advance, hold, monitor, kill, or ask a professional lane before deeper diligence starts?
- It is not a replacement for land-use counsel, civil, traffic, utility, environmental, or geotech work.
- It organizes the public record so those professionals enter with sharper questions.
- It separates verified facts, buyer-provided assumptions, consultant-needed facts, and unknowns.
What the memo contains
Each memo includes a recommendation, approval pathway, risk register, evidence labels, source record, comparable outcomes, and professional handoff questions.
Why it matters
The cheap no belongs before LOI, PSA, counsel spend, utility requests, and consultant mobilization. A cited Phase-Zero memo gives the team a defensible first-pass record before the calendar starts burning.