Rationale and First Screen of the Proposed Project
The targeted residential estate has four hundred homes enclosed in a gated community. Despite the relatively large family setting, there is no public recreation facility apart from a small center housing a bar, few shops, and a health facility. The residents of the estate do not have a Public Park that can support their physical exercise activities and recreational needs. Although the land was allocated for such facility, the estate project stalled in the third phase due to funding limitations. From the results of a random sampling on the views of the residents about their desires of a recreational facility, 70% voiced the need for a public park that can house at least football and basketball courts that could double up as jogging areas. They also proposed a public library that can host mini sports apparel and restrooms to take care of their needs every time they feel like exercising. These needs informed the development of a plan for the proposed project (Griffin and Moorhead 31). When asked if they are willing to pay between $300 and $400 per household to support the project, the residents interviewed agreed with the proposal.
Description
The proposed project is constructing a park that has football, basketball, and volleyball courts, with the football field covering half of the park. Basketball and volleyball courts will cover the other half and each will overlap. At the outer ring of the park, there will be a library with a mini sports apparel shop. The apparel shop will cover a third of the library space. Since the proposed project will be erected in a new residential estate, it is estimated that the size will be relatively small compared to standard parks because of limited space and budget. The park will be created for the residents of the new estate and will have an exclusive membership card for access. However, it may be opened to the public after clearance from the residence board upon payment of a small fee.
Requirement
In order to execute the proposed project, a comprehensive research was carried out to establish the potential materials and cost implication (Albers and Mazur 14). Specifically, the project team referred to an existing model within the same district hosting three hundred residential homes in an enclosed estate. Moreover, the team gathered data from secondary sources on design and quantitative survey in the planning and building of a public park. In addition, the research integrated views of engineers and other professionals who have carried out similar projects in the past. Before carrying out any work on the proposed project, the team sought for approval from the estate developer since the original plan of the new residential area had land allocated for the creation of a public utility facility.
From the research, land allocated for the project measures 80 meters by 80 meters. There is a stream cutting at the center and draining its waters into a small man-made lake, which acts as a fishing ground for the residents. The developer also informed the team that the residential estate project architecture and land surveyor had given the entire land a clean bill of health since it has stable bedrock just 4 feet below the red loam soil at the top. Fortunately, the allocated land is relatively flat, hence will not attract exorbitant cost in the rehabilitation. However, the stream cutting in the middle has to be dealt with since the football pit would overlap.
Upon consultation on the potential requirements in the construction of the park, the residential civic engineer, who developed the new estate, noted that successful project of our magnitude would cost about a hundred thousand dollars. The cost was divided into three major expenditure budgets. The first budget of forty five thousand dollars would go into the digging, filling, leveling, and terracing the football field and the two courts for basketball and volleyball. Specifically, it was estimated that the football field would cost about twenty five thousand dollars if the stream is rerouted or twenty four thousand dollars if it channeled through a pipe across the development land. Building the basketball and the volleyball courts would cost about twenty thousand dollars (see table 1), which is inclusive of erecting terraces and relevant equipment. The cost of doing a library was estimated at twenty thousand dollars, since it would also house a mini apparel shop, changing room, washrooms, and a mini gym. The rest of the budget was allocated to the general landscaping, construction of pitch terraces, a special stand, and restrooms in the eastern, western, northern, and southern ends of the park. In addition, a special turf was proposed for the football pitch to reduce the cost of constant maintenance. According to our plan, three hundred trees will be planted around the park as part of the landscaping requirement.
Table 1. Summary of the budgetary allocation
Scope Rapid Prototype
The proposed project requires further review to develop a cost effective prototype that falls within the project budget. In this case, the first alternative would be to implement the project as proposed. The second alternative would be to modify the basketball and volleyball courts into a single pitch that has movable posts to accommodate one activity at a time. This will reduce the cost implication by almost $10,000. Again, the stream cutting across the football pitch can be channeled into a pipe to save about $2,000 that was to be used to redirect it off the park. In addition, the washrooms could be done on just two sides of the park to cut the cost of construction by $5,000. However, these proposals have a direct impact on the quality of the project since they will limit the park’s usage at any given time (Elder and Krishna 998). For instance, it would be difficult to convince the residents that volleyball and basketball cannot be played at the same time.
Evaluate/Refine Ideas
In the interest of ensuring that the budget allocation is observed, the adjustments were passed through a litmus test for their relevance, applicability, and impacts on the primary intention of the project. The findings of this test revealed that it would be ideal to implement the project as initially proposed since the cost difference would only be $15,000, which could be recovered in less than a year after completion of the park from the user fees. As the project stands, it is feasible to carry out the actual construction since 400 households paying a $300 dollars subscription each would translate to $120,000. This is more than the estimated cost of the project. Even if only 80% of the residents commit to the project, it would be possible to raise $96,000, which is just $4,000 short of the initial budget. Using the Porter’s Five Forces Model, the project evaluation reviewed the bargaining power of the end users, existing of substitutes, bargaining power of the contractor and material suppliers, current and potential competition, and the possibility of a new entrant offering the same services (Markel 18). Apparently, the project will be based within a gated community and will be owned by the residents, who will also finance it. The project has a fixed cost and will not suffer from dynamics as a result of inflations in the costing (Bolman and Deal 55). There can never be any substitute as the project only targets residents and there is only a single plot allocated for the proposed facility. This means that the impact of any potential competition would be near zero (Kotler and Keller 29). The only constraint would be a rise in cost due to underestimation of the residents’ subscription. Thus, based on the Porter’s Five Forces Model, the project is viable as is proposed.
Works Cited
Albers, Michael, and Mary Mazur, editors. Content and Complexity: Information Design in Technical Communication. Routledge, 2014.
Markel, Mike. Technical Communication. 11th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014.
Kotler, Philip, and Kevin Keller. Marketing Management. 15th ed., Pearson Prentice Hall, 2016.
Griffin, Ricky, and Gully Moorhead. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. 10th ed., South-Western Cengage Learning, 2012.
Elder, Ryan, and Aradhna Krishna. “The Visual Depiction Effect in Advertising: Facilitating Embodied Mental Simulation Through Product Orientation.” Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 38, no. 6, 2013, pp. 988-1003.
Bolman, Lee, and Terrence Deal. Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership. 3rd ed., John Wiley & Sons, 2013.