We often visit a plot of land, look at its surroundings, check the access routes, and go back convinced we've found an excellent location. But what would happen if we returned to that same place at seven at night, or on a Saturday afternoon?
Over the years I've learned that a location can seem extraordinary during one visit and show us a completely different reality when we come back at another time.
And that's something I consider increasingly important when we evaluate where to invest, develop a project or open a new business.
The same location can have three different realities
Let's think about a residential building we're developing. We can offer magnificent apartments, gyms and excellent common areas, but have we checked how long it will take residents to get to work, or back home, when all the surrounding streets are congested?
Now let's think about a restaurant in a business district. At lunchtime it can be surrounded by thousands of workers, but when the offices close, those same streets can be practically empty. Is there enough demand to keep it open at night or on weekends?
Something similar happens with logistics. We can invest in a Class A warehouse, with the best technology and located next to a highway, but if our vehicles need too much time to reach it during peak hours, part of our efficiency can be lost before the route even begins.
Three completely different projects that share the same problem: we may be evaluating their features without sufficiently understanding how the city around them works.
What we should know before investing
When I walk through an area I'm evaluating, I care about observing not only its buildings or how many people move through its streets, but also how all that activity changes throughout the day.
There are three aspects I consider fundamental:
- When people arrive and when they leave. We need to distinguish between those who live, work, study, or simply pass through the area. Each group uses the city at different times and generates different needs.
- How they actually get to that location. Being near a major avenue, a highway or a metro station isn't enough. We need to know real travel times, pedestrian conditions, and the problems that appear during critical hours.
- What happens when the surrounding activity changes. An area full of workers at midday can have little life at night. A residential neighborhood can experience exactly the opposite. Understanding these differences also lets us discover which services are missing.
These aspects don't replace market studies or technical reports. They help us ask better questions before committing to an investment.
Opportunities also appear when the schedule changes
Here I find something I think is especially interesting.
A business district that loses much of its activity at the end of the workday might have demand for new residential uses, services, or activities that keep the neighborhood alive for more hours.
A residential area that's adding hundreds of apartments might need new retail, gathering spaces and supply solutions that don't exist yet.
Even an access difficulty can lead us to reconsider a project's design, its operating hours, or the location we had initially chosen.
But to identify these opportunities, we need to know much better what happens outside our plots and buildings.
A location doesn't have the same value for every business, nor does it work the same way across all 24 hours of the day.
I'm increasingly convinced that we should complement plans, studies and statistics with something that remains indispensable: walking the area, observing it at different times, and understanding how people really use it.
Because many times the risks that can compromise an investment, and the opportunities we haven't yet identified, are precisely in what we didn't see during our first visit.
Are we visiting our future investments when everything is running smoothly, or when their real problems show up?
