City Hopes Vacancy-Listing Website Will Draw Businesses

Large, vacant buildings aren't good for a community's economy or its image, but the city of Elk Grove hopes advertising some of its vacant properties will help to fill them.

This week the city launched ElkGroveSiteSearch.com, a website that lists empty offices, industrial and commercial properties and vacant land in Elk Grove.

"ElkGroveSiteSearch.com combines economic, planning, infrastructure, geographic, and demographic information into a 'one-stop-shop' business portal on the Web,” a press release quoted Economic Development Director Randy Starbuck as saying. “It allows users to view, create, and print maps; find available commercial or business property; and develop custom demographic radius reports.”

Listings on the site include 13 acres of vacant land for sale near Poppy Ridge Road for $1.2 million, and 10 different warehouse/office units for lease on Waterman Road for 39 to 45 cents per square foot.

Below is the full press release from the city:

City of Elk Grove Launches Innovative New Website Designed to Attract Business
New website provides dynamic data and mapping technologies to help expand businesses

Elk Grove, CA –   The City of Elk Grove’s Economic Development Department launched ElkGroveSiteSearch.com today, making access to powerful business information research only a mouse-click away.

Using Geographic Information System (GIS) software, the website provides immediate access to in-depth information that previously took weeks to research.  Now, data including dynamic real estate, demographic and industry breakdowns are available free and instantly for the City of Elk Grove, along with a database of available properties with images.

More than 97 percent of initial site selection screening is done online now, and the new website provides immediate access to critical business intelligence that decision makers need to make an investment decision.  The site reduces research time from weeks to minutes.

"ElkGroveSiteSearch.com combines economic, planning, infrastructure, geographic, and demographic information into a 'one-stop-shop' business portal on the Web,” said Economic Development Director Randy Starbuck.    “It allows users to view, create, and print maps; find available commercial or business property; and develop custom demographic radius reports.”

Website visitors can view available properties, along with size, use, cost and development incentives. Corresponding demographic reports such as labor force, education levels, consumer spending, and age can be created. In addition, businesses are mapped by industry showing their distribution and concentrations throughout the area.

“ElkGroveSiteSearch.com goes far beyond a simple database of available sites and buildings. The website also provides dynamic mapping capabilities including the ability to view geographic ‘layers’ of information such population details, City zoning, hospitals, railroads, and schools,” said Economic Development Coordinator Heather Ross. 

The GIS-powered website is built upon Google Maps technology, and offers state-of-the-art site selection mapping capabilities. The site also features Elk Grove-specific GIS layers created by the City’s GIS Department including zoning and, in the future, traffic counts.  The new website is also integrated with GIS Planning’s national site selection search engine, http://www.zoomprospector.com, which allows visitors to conduct national searches of cities and commercial properties that match their unique criteria. 

For more information about the City of Elk Grove’s economic development department, visit www.openuptoelkgrove.org or contact Economic Development Coordinator Heather Ross at 478-3686 or hross@elkgrovecity.org. 

Elk Grove, what do you think the city can do to attract businesses to Elk Grove? Will this site help? Tell us in the comments section below.