THE MARSHALL FIELD NEGOTIATION: BUYER'S REPRESENTATIVEPlease read carefully the general information distributed to all participants before preparing these confidential instructions for the Buyer's Representative. In this negotiation, you are a senior partner in Johnson & Miller, one of Chicago's leading real estate firms. Your client is Future Ventures Ltd$.,$ a corporation owned by a Bahamian blind trust. The Bahamian trust, in turn, is controlled by the Marriotta International Hotel Group, a publicly held company that owns and operates more than $5,700$ properties and hotels in $110$ countries worldwide.In this negotiation, Marriotta is attempting a brilliant coup. Dream Town Realty is selling what it believes to be the right to develop luxury residential housing. The property is appropriate for another use, however. Marriotta's architects have drawn rough plans for the construction of a Marriotta Hotel on the site. The hotel would use the elegant Marshall Field Mansion for its lobby and public room. A tower would be built in the current "garden" area in the back and would connect with the rear of the Mansion. The site for the hotel tower behind the Mansion would be of ideal dimensions, wide enough to permit $80$ rooms per floor. Fully half the rooms in the tower would be premium "Lake View" rooms. The hotel would retain the Mansion's prestigious Lake Park Avenue address and excellent access near Lake Michigan.However, there is additional information that you should know. Even assuming the site can be acquired, making this Mansion into a hotel will not be easy. The Zoning Board would have to rezone the site from mixed residential and commercial to high$-$rise commercial, something they have so far refused to do$.$ However, you and your clients are optimistic about getting this change. Indeed, a new Marriotta Hotel would add significantly to the city's current shortage of hotel rooms. Also, the hotel lobby and bars would be open to the public, unlike the contemplated private residences. Overall, the bottom line is that your proposal will succeed if it offers the mayor a politically and economically viable alternative.Your own extensive past experience in the Chicago real estate market has given you a good idea of possible competing bids. Bids contemplating the development of luxury housing will most likely fall around $$11\mathrm{.}5$ to $$13\mathrm{.}5$ million. You have also heard rumors of a Westinghouse bid to construct a mix of restaurants, shops, and galleries, and that could be worth as much as $$20$ million. Competing bids contemplating a high$-$rise commercial development could be considerably higher, but you are willing to bet no one else has thought of building a high$-$rise hotel or office tower and plans to partition the garden plot aren't feasible because it's too narrow. Moreover, there is an excess of high$-$rise office space in Chicago.The specific instructions from your client are as follows. Future Ventures has authorized you to offer up to $$24$ million for the Marshall Field property, which would be a reasonable maximum price. Marriotta wants this site and to use the Marshall Field name. If you cannot buy the Marshall Field property, Future Ventures can buy an acceptable alternative site for $$20$ million. Note that if word got out about Marriotta's interest in Chicago, it would vastly increase not only the price of this site, but that of the alternate site as well. Marriotta has no interest in residential or other non$-$hotel development. Therefore, your client, Future Ventures Ltd$.,$ has instructed you not to reveal the intended use of the site under anyWhat will be your opening moves and first strategies?