Using the ex Honda test facility in California as a base, I have come up with some figures.
Today, I looked at some private race tracks online. Most are catering to rich people. I also looked at a few sites about track costs.
If you own the land, have the permissions, and the track is designed, it is estimated to cost about $1-2 million USA per mile of asphalt track.
So if I was to build 5 miles of F1 type track it would cost $10 million USA.
That is about 3 times the cost of the land!
Here is what one reader added to this forum:
http://forums.speedarena.com/showthread.php?3764584
Here is what it is costing us:2 million for land
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1 million per mile of racetrack, so 2 million for 2 mile road course
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1 million for parking lot and other infrastructure elements
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1 million for clubhouse facility (read, large metal building with a cantina and lockerooms)
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4 million for engineers, designers, architects, safety inspections, EPA inspections, insurance, safety, and other miscellaneous contruction and expensegrand total = 10 million and this is a really bare bones setupInsurance and upkeep annually will be nuts so factor that in.
My proposal would be
$3 million for the land
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$10 million. $2 million per mile of racetrack. $10 million for 5 miles of F1 quality track.
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$3 million for parking and other infrastructure elements
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Cost of a Solar farm. We can be electricity independent. We have about 4,255acres.
Apple have just spent $3 million for a 200 acre site in California for use as a Solar farm.
No costs appear online. However, I found another article.
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/12/06/200-mw-solar-farm-to-be-established-in-hardee-county/
This project will consist of ten 200-acre solar farms, which are to cost $70 million each.
National Solar Power said that each 20-MW portion of the project will employ a three-person maintenance crew, an engineer, and security personnel, and the average salary for the permanent jobs mentioned above is expected to be $40,000 per year.
I have no idea how much electricity we would use. We have permissions to set up a solar farm. Land is not a problem. $70 million is a lot of money!
I'll leave that to one side for now. Perhaps we could lease the land to a corporation. They set up the farm we get free electricity!
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$30 million
University entrance and buildings. This depends on the amount of students we expect and the number of rooms/ workshops needed.
If we operate on an OU basis students will only be on campus for a few days to maybe a few months.
Maybe we should look at erecting a permanent Grandstand. It could be sectioned for lessons. When an event takes place we utilise the grandstand as a grandstand. Burnley FC have a University which utises a multi use architecture.
Stadiarena quote $3,000 per seat for an arena. So lets say we stick a 10,000 seat arena trackside.
We make it multi use. Theoretically it would cost $30 million. However it would be used as lecture rooms, and function as a trackside stand when appropriate.
This would be in addition to the buildings already on the site.
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$10 million Student accomodation.
To keep costs down. I propose a mixture of a tent city, dorms and single rooms. This gives students a choice.
We can invite a proper hotel chain the chance to set up, or build ourselves. Plus California City is hugely under developed, I'm sure accomodation will pop up.
Lets budget $10 million for accomodation. This can include buying land and developing property in California City. Obviously, there needs to be somewhere for clients to stay.
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$7 million for engineers, designers, architects, safety inspections, EPA inspections, insurance, safety, and other miscellaneous contruction and expense
grand total = 63 million and this may grow...Insurance and upkeep annually will be nuts so factor that in.Then we need to add cars and academics plus course contracts.
Lets say we use Lotus and Westfields with maybe some Satria rally cars.Add in some of those expensive Lotus F125 pretend F1 cars. How much? F125's are a million each!
Lets say a stable of 50 cars and bikes at an average of $100,000 each, plus 2 F125's.
$7 million plus $3 million worth of garages/workshops/storage.
So about $73 million buys the land buildings track and cars/bikes.Lets add $7 million for Media and TV plus academic licences and permissions to enable the OU side of the business to operate. I pulled this figure out of the air.
So $80 million gets us an operational circuit fully equipped to open as both a circuit and University.
This figure obviously doubles if we include a 200 acre solar farm.
I'm not an accountant. I may have missed something very obvious!
ROI on $80 million. If we get University status, and can successfully combine OU studies with the physical campus. The education would be done in modules. Phoenix University is the most successful private OU in North America. It can have 1/2 million students at any given time.
One full academic year costs circa $10,000. Many students will only take a partial year.
Lets say 1/2million students taking an average of $2,000 worth of modules per year and we make $1,000 million revenue per year.
I am not saying we will achieve this in the short term. However, it could be a medium term goal.
Ideally, I would like 4+ campuses worldwide. With a medium to long term goal of 1 million students.
Many of the costs, land, accomodation and Stadium/University can be amortised over years.
The cars and bikes have a short and expensive lifespan.
What a wonderful way to introduce Proton, Potenza and Lotus to North America!
