If a retailer contacted your community today requesting a list of all available development sites of 10 acres, with highway access and visibility, how quickly could you provide this information?

The winners in today’s competitive market would be able to provide immediate answers. Before deciding to locate to your city, retail prospects must first know what buildings or sites are available. Your ability to rapidly supply detailed data indicates your community’s desire to attract and expand its retail sector.

The key to providing this information quickly and accurately is to maintain a database of available buildings and sites that also contains pertinent details related to the property inventory. The type of information needed for site inventory lists is similar to the information for building inventory catalogs, although there are a few differences.

Site Database

The retail site database should include all available properties that have significant retail potential. You can’t justify listing secondary properties that have limited accessibility or visibility. Communities are challenged to think like retailers and, therefore, exclude those properties with limited or no retail potential.

What sizes of sites should be included in the database? Restaurants may be looking for sites of one acre or less while regional shopping centers need hundreds of acres. The city should include all potential and viable sites in the database, which should be easily sorted by size as well as by other property features.

In addition to size, the database must include details about the physical characteristics such as topography and infrastructure. The list should also include ownership, assessed value, and taxes as well as zoning and environmental considerations. Details about types of businesses surrounding the site, traffic generators and planned developments are critical to the site evaluation and thus should be included in the database.

Building Database

Normally, the building database includes vacant free-standing buildings as well as shopping center units that have not been leased. This database should include information about the condition of the building, amenities, when the building was built and the classifications of previous tenants. In addition, the database should list nearby retailers and other traffic generators as well as business clusters and community facilities in the trade area.

The tax assessor office can be a source of much of this information, particularly the details on the assessed value, sales history, size and zoning.

Presenting the Information

Many communities use property databases as a marketing tool on the Internet. Their retail development Web sites provide searchable information about available properties. One particularly good online database is provided by the city of San Jose, Calif. On this Web site, www.sanjoseretail.com, available building and unit information is readily available. Another way to increase the value of information provided to retailers is to use a Geographic Information System (GIS) marketing tool designed to display and print reports based on the properties that suit each inquiring retailer. Buxton’s SCOUT is a Web-based customized location management service that provides dynamic mapping and site data capabilities for communities.

Facilitating the Location-Decision Process

By communicating retail property data, communities meet the needs of prospective firms. A detailed and current database of retail buildings and sites will help the community effectively compete in an increasingly crowded marketplace.