Executive Summary
By:
Seth Broadfoot
This was a project designed to find the best piece of land to place a Cracker Barrel restraunt on. There are several pieces of information that must be obtained before a project like this can be executed. Thankfully, most all of the needed information was supplied. Before we began this project, we were given a list of criteria that had to be met.
Before we could begin actual work on our project we were asked to build a cartographic model. This was simply a guideline for the entire project.
The first criterion listed was the site had to located in proximity to an interstate or off ramp. Our group went into ARC map to get started. We copied all of the data files listed into one of our personal files, this allowed for the data to be edited. We began our interstates layer by asking the computer to show all parcels located within the specification of the interstate.
Our next step was to eliminate as many parcels as possible, in order to achieve this we did a query and removed all parcels that were smaller than 2.5 acres. These two steps were excellent starting points and immediately eliminated many areas. However, all of the parcels that were 2.5 acres of larger were not automatically accepted. The next criterion was ensure that the Cracker Barrel parcel was in the commercial zoning area. Once again we started by doing a query and building another layer. After we did this we combined our parcels layer and our zoning layer into one. This allowed us to eliminated a layer and made things a little easier to work with. Along these same lines the criteria stated that all parcels had to accommodate a 10,000 square foot building and be able to hold 185+ parking spaces.
The next problem we encountered in this project was buildings. We need to ensure there weren�t any on the parcel we selected. Cracker Barrel does not refurbish buildings, having a building on an existing site would drive up construction cost when they were removed. We used a building layer that already existed in the data files to achieve this task.
Population was the next concern. There is no need for a restraunt without people to eat the food. The requirements stated that at least 25,000 people had to live within a 5 mile radius, and the preferred number was 40,000 people or greater. In order to achieve an accurate population count we created a buffer within the population layer. Once the buffer was created we opened the attributes table for the buffer layer and did a total count of the population.
The next thing we need is money. The criteria stated that the average of the population contained within the buffer area had to earn at least 12,000 per year. We did a query on earned income and place the income in a layer by itself. From this layer we used the attributes table to sum and average the population income.
Since most all Cracker Barrels are located on an interstate traffic flow is also a major concern. The next criteria we looked for was to insure at least 25,000 vehicles per day on the interstate and 15,000 vehicles per day on all secondary arteries. There were no traffic layers available to us, so counts had to be acquired from United States traffic maps.
Our last concern was property price. We wanted to make sure that each acre in the parcel was reasonably priced for the area. Once again there were no layers in ARC to get this information, but for the most part this was only a minor concern. We did go outside to gather a little information on property values and found that the parcels we selected were comparable and/or cheaper than some of the parcels surrounding.
In conclusion, I feel we placed our Cracker Barrel on the best available spot. There will always be gaps in the information with out field checking it. I also feel a topographic layer could have been helpful. There was also a utilities criteria that we did not get into because generally if the area is in the commercial district utility hook ups should not be a problem.
