Yes, many times. Highest and Best Use studies are one of the few opportunities most appraisers get these days to truly use our skills to help clients make decisions we can actually see the results of. To do this properly, I recommend the Appraisal Institute Book
Market Analysis for Real Estate.
There are 2 kinds of studies, a site in search of a use, and a use in search of a site. I'm actually working on the latter right now, but that is less common. I will assume you are doing the former.
You really have to discuss with your client the scope of work, as the level of detail you put into such a report can vary considerably.
The short answer is rather than structure your report as a traditional appraisal, it is structured as the highest and best use analysis. You first look at the site, determine what can legally be done with it, and perform a productivity analysis (all of the positives and negatives of a site). You then determine what is financially feasible, based on what is both physically possible and legally permissible.
The market analysis for each use should follow the AI standards for levels A, B, C, and D. If you don't know what those are, you need the book I cited above. Most appraisers have little experience doing high level market analyses, but depending on the project, the seemingly difficult Level D analysis can be a lot of fun. It involves a lot of interviewing, and if your client has the cash, you can hire all kinds of third parties.
Once you determine what is financially feasible by looking at supply and demand factors in our market analysis, you perform an appraisal for each of the uses.
Generally, these are all residual analyses. You perform an income approach as if hypothetically complete, and deduct out construction costs, lease-up costs, etc. Whatever yields the highest residual land value is the highest and best use.
Alternatively, you can perform a discounted cash flow and impute the IRR for each scenario. The scenario with the highest IRR wins.