services
capabilities
MCFA has unique capabilities with expertise both in the Urban Planning and Management Consulting arenas. This combination allows MCFA to deliver non-traditional solutions to clients’ needs. Following are areas in which MCFA specializes but please inquire directly in the contact section for more specific information on how MCFA can tailor a solution to your specific needs.
Please use the links below to navigate to our various capabilities
Facilities
Environmental
Business Analysis
Transportation Planning
Real Estate Planning
Energy Management
Commercial Rates
Facilities
Condition Assessments:
A business, an institution or a government agency must have a clear understanding of its existing facilities in order to address the changing needs of its users. Perhaps environmental or energy considerations have prompted an evaluation of the costs and benefits of instituting new procedures or modernizing structures. Often, safety and security concerns prompt a reassessment of the physical environment. Evolving requirements for national defense have necessitated the reevaluation and, sometimes, privatization of military facilities here and abroad.
MCFA has the ability and experience to assess existing conditions and create a database of facility components for evaluating alternative strategies to meet current and future physical plant requirements. By providing a clear and concise picture of existing conditions, MCFA creates the framework for asset management and a tool for determining the relative value of existing facility renovation, new construction or a combination of both. Condition assessments are a valuable tool for long range planning and provide a structure for periodic reevaluation of goals, objectives and procedures.
Feasibility Studies:
Feasibility studies help determine, prior to the expenditure of significant time and money, the viability of proceeding with an activity, whether the purchase or lease of a property, the commencement of a business venture, or the implementation of a policy. During the feasibility analysis, a broad initial view of the proposed activity, based on readily available data, provides a preliminary assessment of anticipated costs and benefits, including environmental, social, political, technological, as well as, financial considerations. By affording an opportunity to evaluate risks at the beginning of an endeavor, feasibility studies provide a green light to proceed, a basis for revisiting price and terms, or a determination to pursue opportunities elsewhere.
Integrated Facilities Operation and Management:
For organizations with expansive physical plant such as universities and military installations, Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) equipment is a major recurring capital expense. Maintaining this equipment at the optimum performance levels requires resources, planning and management commitment. Failure to do so results in unnecessary and premature capital expenditures and very pointed complaints from vocal building tenants. MCFA has developed cutting edge technologies to prognosticate equipment failures and avert them and sends saving clients not only money but the chaos that breakdowns cause.
Master Planning:
A master plan is the framework for physical development over a period of time. Based on a thorough evaluation of existing conditions and forecasts of future needs, a master plan considers the physical components of circulation, communications, site layout, building design, the environment and safety and security concerns. MCFA works with the client to develop goals and objectives for future missions and evaluates alternative scenarios for meeting needs in light of limited resources. Master planning is dynamic, necessitating periodic reevaluation as missions and resources change. A master plan is more than a document. It is a process for measuring the effectiveness of activities and modifying them as goals and objectives evolve.
Program Management:
Every complex entity has multiple projects requiring coordination and prioritization for the use of limited resources. Program management steps back and provides a global focus to evaluate the best use of time, funds and people to benefit the organization’s bottom line. While individual projects have starting and ending points, program management is continuous, spanning multiple projects. Improvement of processes is one of the primary objectives of program management.
MCFA works closely with the client to balance costs, schedule and human resources among the demands of multiple projects to best meet the needs of the overall mission, be it physical site development or management processes. In the implementation of a physical plan, for example, MCFA will identify such parameters as traffic issues, energy demands, utility infrastructure, safety and security, aesthetics and on-going maintenance, along with alternative means of financing. Viewing the context of these needs, MCFA will evaluate competing demands and provide the client with solutions that optimize all resources.
Space Planning:
As organizations evolve, often their physical structures cease to efficiently serve their missions. It is essential to determine the physical requirements of the mission and the optimal means of providing such space. Some activities require privacy for security reasons; some require special safety considerations; some require a specific location; some are better served where group interaction is facilitated while others are optimized where group interaction is discouraged. MCFA evaluates an organization’s needs and physical assets, and creates a database for future assessments. In accordance with the client’s preferences, either MCFA will maintain and update the database, or we will train the client to use it as needed.
Environmental
MCFA offers a wide range of environmental services to meet the needs of both public and private sector clients. A keen understanding of federal, state, and local laws, legislation, and regulations; efficient management of various projects, studies, surveys, and evaluations; and successful ability to research, document, and present unbiased information comprise a brief summary of the services we are able to provide.
Specific services that MCFA is able to provide to both public and private sector clients include a full range of environmental products to:
- Ensure compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act
- By determining the appropriate level of analysis for proposed actions
- By completing a full analysis of proposed actions and effects on air quality, noise, water resources, soils, biological resources, cultural resources, socioeconomics, environmental Justice, health and safety, land use, and utilities through the preparation of Environmental Assessments or Environmental Impact Statements
- By providing mitigation solutions to avoid or minimize harm to the environment
- By creating active public involvement through scoping, public meetings, media inserts, and coordination with other agencies
- Ensure compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act
- By identifying properties that are eligible for the National Register of Historic Place and identifying those properties that are not
- By coordinating with the appropriate State Historic Preservation Office and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
- By researching, determining, and preparing the appropriate documentation to allow for conduct of various federal activities
- Ensure adequate liability protection through environmental due diligence
- By conducting transaction screens, Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessments, and Phase II Site Assessments per ASTM requirements
- By conducting Environmental Baseline Surveys per AR requirements
- Implement or verify compliance with an Environmental Management System (EMS) or other management programs
- By planning, conducting, reporting on, and leading audits of EMS per ISO 14001
- By investigating current operations or programs to determine compliance with applicable laws and regulations
Business Analysis
Budgeting and Management Controls:
Our clients benefit from our expertise in accounting and governmental budgeting. We understand the subtleties of governmental funding cycles and help clients to plan and control the limited capital they have. We use best in class techniques to assist clients in capital budgeting and take a rigorous, activity based approach in helping clients understand their operating budgets. Clients value MCFA’s experience in internal controls and fraud detection to ensure that they have sufficient systems to support their obligations as stewards of taxpayer funds.
Financial Analysis and Modeling:
MCFA employees have great depth of experience in corporate financial management. This expertise distinguishes us from our peers. MCFA applies advanced modeling techniques, econometric analysis, cost-benefit and discounted cashflow analysis, optimization and simulation modeling in solving problems for public sector clients. Furthermore, MCFA’s professionals have a record of developing innovative financing techniques designed to meet our clients' needs at the lowest possible cost of capital. We operate at the high end of the public finance industry, providing advice and counsel based on sound financial principles and sophisticated technical analysis.
Negotiation:
Public sector managers are occasionally called on to negotiate real estate lease deals, privatization of service contracts or other complex negotiations with private sector entities. These managers may be at a disadvantage as the parties on the opposite side of the transactions make a living as professional negotiators, while our clients have “day jobs.” Our team possesses the advanced financial skills needed to negotiate aggressive business terms for transactions. We find that, as occasional negotiators, our clients often undervalue their negotiating positions. Our job is to ensure that they clearly understand the value they bring to the table and the long term ramifications of the contracts into which they enter. We act in a tacit support role through the negotiation, or we can go one step further and negotiate on their behalf if that is our client’s preference.
Privatization Studies:
Private firms often conduct lease vs. buy analyses of large capital projects and insource vs. outsource analyses of transactional services. The results of these analyses arm private sector managers with the information they need to drive lasting value to their organizations. MCFA helps bring this standard industry mentality to public sector managers so that its clients can decide the most economical course of action, negotiate smarter and get back to the business of providing outstanding service to their constituencies. Whether it is a protracted OMB A-76 study or a more modest privatization decision, MCFA brings the skills and experience to ensure that the right decision is made today and the rationale for the decision is unimpeachable in the future.
Process Quality:
Many leading companies have turned to Lean Six Sigma as a management philosophy with the goal of improving both speed (Lean) and quality (Six Sigma). What’s more, the United States Department of Defense considers Lean Six Sigma its "tool of choice" for "business transformation.” Lean Six Sigma is here and important organizations all over the world are using it to drive change.
As experts in Lean Six Sigma, MCFA helps clients identify, monitor and control waste and inconsistency in their critical business processes. In our experience, many process improvement initiatives are cynically received as “flavor of the month” by employees and subsequently fail to be sustained. We work to understand our clients’ work culture to ensure they are capable of sustaining lasting improvement.
Transportation Planning
Transportation planning is arguably the most complex and often most contentious branch of the planning profession. However, when done correctly, it can have radical and positive impacts on individuals and their communities. MCFA associates pride themselves in extraordinary transportation planning capabilities and record of seeing projects through to completion and beyond.
Real Estate Development
Community Outreach:
Believe it or not, establishing a vision and securing funding to execute are the easy part of many real estate development deals. The public is often affected in profound and unexpected ways by development and these concerns can derail good projects. MCFA’s community outreach experts help ensure that public concerns are well-understood prior to investment decisions. We also act as a broker between conflicting segments of the public to help developers and public officials achieve consensus.
Program Development:
Years on the other side of the negotiating table from real estate developers have taught MCFA’s associates what works and what doesn’t work in trying to overcome impediments to development. MCFA uses this expertise when partnering with real estate developers get their development plans off the ground. Few planning firms can boast the similar effectiveness of scoping projects, gathering the right implementation team, developing proposals, winning the approval of landowners and public officials.
MCFA prides itself on having “big vision” and believes that such thinking inspires people. The Philadelphia region is home to some of the first and most innovative public works and revitalization projects and this is part of our DNA.
Energy Management
Demand Side Management:
Managing consumption of energy has become a vital task in today’s volatile energy environment. While many activities focus on improving overall efficiency, most energy makets offer cost reduction opportunities through management of demand levels (Demand Side Management). MCFA’s DSM team can help you develop strategies to reduce demand for electricity (or gas) and/or to shift demand from peak to off-peak times. These may include advanced control algorithms for heating and cooling, thermal storage or on-site generation. Renewable energy generation is proving to be an important contributor in this rapidly expanding field. The process is easy to get started with a simple analysis of tariffs, loads and equipment.
Procurement Strategies:
Increasing prices and volatility combine to make managing energy purchases more complex than ever. MCFA’s team brings a proven track record of applying energy purchasing skills to a client’s energy requirements and managing budgets within appropriate risk tolerances.
Program Development:
Integrating energy issues into a business and operations plan has become a critical element for any organization, private or public. MCFA’s ‘sweet spot’ is helping their client’s executive management team develop and implement a comprehensive program to manage energy procurement, consumption and generation. Program elements may include short term ‘SWOT’ actions to take advantage of low or no cost operational improvements, long term asset management strategies to deploy capital to improve equipment, and business process improvements to enhance operational efficiency.
Commercial Rates
Please see Rates and Personnel Qualifications for specific information on the skills of MCFA personnel and our customer rates.