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Henry Wise (MSRE84) is not your run-of-the-mill appraiser. When he says he’s evaluated some unusual properties, he means it. For the U.S. Justice Department, he put a value on the wetlands of the Everglades. In Atlanta, he’s recently appraised condemned land near Atlantic Station on the behalf of private property owners.

With a background in political science, Wise spent 20 years as an urban planning consultant to government before entering the real estate field outright. "Real estate is the private enterprise companion to economic development and urban planning by cities," he says. "There is a symbiotic relationship."

With his experience in working with governments, Wise easily fell into his new career. Today much of his time is spent as an expert witness for the Justice Department in Virginia and for condemning authorities and condemnees in Georgia. "I make judgments," Wise says. "Market value is a construct, particularly convenient in law, but it is a theoretical definition. Many constraints lead to conflicts about value. My opinion is evidence in court, and my responsibility is to make my judgment seem more reasonable than the appraiser the other side hired."

Wise joined the appraisal firm of Pritchett, Ball, and Wise, in 1987. With 10 fulltime and eight contract appraisers, the firm has been witness to dramatic changes in Atlanta since its founding in 1954. Wise himself says he doesn’t know of a more dramatic change in land value than that around the 17th Street extension, which made way for the Atlantic Station development. Once the development community believed that the 17th Street Bridge would become reality, land prices shot from $15 to $20 per square foot to up to $60. Now there are several land transactions in that same area at between $100/sf and $175/sf. Wise sees part of Atlanta’s future development as extending out from this area.

The Beltline development is another of those city-changing events, says Wise who recently completed an appraisal of the Bellwood Mine, a large tract along the proposed development site. The Beltline hopes to connect 45 intown neighborhoods with parks, transit, and trails along a 22-mile loop of historic unused rail lines through downtown and midtown. Its advocates hope to spark redevelopment of nearly 3,000 acres of underutilized properties as well as set aside Beltline Tax Allocation District funds for construction of affordable workforce housing.

"We’ve gone north as far as we can go and get back and forth in one day," says Wise. "We now need to push Atlanta into a more attractive residential work/live community. This type of development is slow. It takes vision and resources."

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