Ground Lease

Under a ground lease, the landlord leases a piece of land to a tenant. Nothing too weird there. But the ground lease also allows the tenant to build on the land and add improvements. As such, these leases tend to be very long (like, multi-decades long). Despite the construction paid for by the tenant, the original landowner keeps title to the property.

You want to build a factory. So you enter a ground lease with a person who owns an empty lot downtown. The lease runs for 50 years. You build the factory and run a successful leather goods business, paying rent for the ground lease during that time. Eventually, as the lease is coming to an end, you retire. The owner of the once-vacant lot gets the lot back.