Titleman has not measured the whole site selection calendar at a chain and prints no number of days for it. It did measure the desk screen: three candidate pads took 48.7 minutes. A late site costs your lost sales first: expected annual sales divided by 365, times your margin, times the days late. Before a lease is signed, no rent is running.
If a lease or ground lease with rent already running is signed, that rent adds to the cost, and a worked example is below. The rent figures are inputs from one finished run, not market facts. The sections below show where each number comes from and how to replace it with yours.
How many days does site selection take?
From a broker's first email to opening day, the calendar runs through steps we do not run and have not timed: search and shortlist, lease negotiation, municipal approvals, construction. We know of no figure we could cite for them, and a page of unsourced days is worse than none. Your own record of the last ten openings is a better number than any average.
The step we can time is the one before the visit: the desk screen. It reads who owns the site, what the rules allow, whether the prototype fits, what the drainage takes and what is in the site's past.
| What was timed | Result | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Three vacant pads compared side by side, one run | 48.7 minutes | Run 26177, 16 October 2026, on a Titleman QA account |
| Feasibility run, median | 27.2 minutes | 80 finished runs in the 30 days to 11 October 2026 |
| One run in ten took longer than | 74.5 minutes | Same 80 runs |
The same run listed 9 red flags and 7 open items across the three pads, in the memo instead of smoothed over. A red flag found at the desk costs minutes. The same flag found after a lease is signed can cost the days a signed lease runs without a store, as the next section shows. The full run is on the site feasibility page, and the timing method is on the feasibility timing page.
What does a late site cost per day?
The first cost is lost sales. For a site that is late because it is not yet chosen, no lease is signed, so no rent or ground rent is running. What the unit would have sold each day is the cost, and that number is yours: your forecast, not ours.
If a lease or ground lease with rent already running is signed, for example with a fixed rent start date, that rent runs while the store is closed and adds to the lost sales. It is worked here from the run's own assumptions, shown so you can change them. Pads A, B and C are the three pads of that run; their addresses are withheld.
| If rent is already running | Basis | Per day (dollars) | Ten days (dollars) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rent on the building | 2,800 SF at a net rent of 65 per SF a year | 499 | 4,986 |
| Ground rent, Pad A | 5.5% ground rent on 470,448 of tax-roll land value | 71 | 709 |
| Ground rent, Pad B | 5.5% ground rent on 653,400 | 98 | 985 |
| Ground rent, Pad C | 5.5% ground rent on 600,000 | 90 | 904 |
The arithmetic: 2,800 × 65 = 182,000 a year, divided by 365 is 498.63 a day. Ground rent is the land value times 5.5%, divided by 365. If the net rent ranges from 50 to 80 per SF, as the run assumed, the daily rent runs from 384 to 614 dollars.
Three limits on these figures:
- They apply only if rent is running. The 65 per SF and the 5.5% are assumptions, not market facts and not any chain's lease. The land values are tax-roll values, not prices.
- Rent may not run before opening. Many leases start rent at opening. Then the cost of a late site is the sales you did not make, and the table does not show that.
- They are not lost sales. Sales are the larger number and they are yours.
How do I work out my own number?
- Take the unit's expected annual sales from your forecast and divide by 365. That is daily sales.
- Keep the share you would have kept as contribution, using your own margin.
- Add the daily rent or ground rent only if a lease with rent already running is signed.
- Multiply by the days late.
Titleman holds no sales or margin figure for any chain and prints none. Put the days from your last ten openings next to the daily cost, and the price of a slow week is on one line.
What the screen changes, and what it does not
The screen changes the order of work. The red flags that can kill a site are known before a visit and before a test-fit is paid for, so documents are ordered for the short list only. That moves effort earlier. We have not measured that it removes days from your calendar, and we do not say it does.
What this does not replace
- Your lease negotiation. Terms, rent start and remedies stay with your counsel and broker.
- Title, survey and flood documents. A screen tells you which to order first. It does not replace a title commitment, a survey, the official flood panel or a Phase I where the history asks for one.
- Approvals. Permits and municipal review run on the municipality's calendar. We have not measured them.
- Your sales forecast and the decision. The choice of site, the offer and the go-or-no-go stay with your team. The output is a draft for your team to review.
See it on your own sites
Name three candidate sites and your prototype, and we will walk through the side-by-side, the red flags and the open items on your own addresses. Request a demo.