NEW YORK CITY-Add the Empire State Development Corp. to a fairly short list of economic development organizations worldwide to make a searchable property and socioeconomic database available on the web. More than just property listings, though, the website, newyorkstate.zoomprospector.com, provides access to local market information that might otherwise take weeks to put together.
In a release announcing the new website, which went live this past Tuesday, ESDC chairman & CEO Dennis Mullen says it has “very real implications for the business community as it provides instant access to detailed site selection data, increasing New York's capacity to respond more efficiently and effectively to businesses looking to expand or relocate here.” Data including real estate, demographic and industry breakdowns are available free of charge for New York City and other cities statewide, along with a central database of available properties with images.
The impetus for launching such a site is “the challenging economic times that we’re in,” Anatalio Ubalde, CEO of San Francisco-based GIS Planning, who developed the new site, tells GlobeSt.com. “The state of New York and the country in general has lost a lot of jobs, which has resulted in significant retail, commercial, industrial vacancy. States like New York are being very proactive in finding ways that they can create jobs, attract business and grow business. If they can assist those businesses, it helps everybody.” Mullen concurs, telling GlobeSt.com, “In order to compete on a national and international basis, there are these types of tools made available to organizations like us all over the globe, and it was clearly incumbent upon us to take advantage of this.”
During the go-go years of not so long ago, “there was a time when states and any economic development organization could wait for businesses to call them,” says Ubalde. “But now they have to be proactive. There’s clearly a correlation between this and the situation for commercial real estate brokers: the leads aren’t just falling in their laps anymore.” This program represents a way in which the state is taking the initiative on behalf of brokers, developers and other members of the real estate community, by helping them to find the qualified leads.
Additionally, “the faster the state can create economic development, the better,” Ubalde says. “There’s often a lot of friction in the process of starting up, expanding or relocating a business into any part of the country. So New York is reducing that friction by speeding up and simplifying the transaction process.”
Mullen notes that while websites such as this are available all over the globe, only about 20% of organizations are taking advantage of it. Therefore, New York State saw this as “a competitive advantage. It is clear that with this type of tool in our toolbox, we are going to be able to disseminate information in a more timely manner and just as importantly, in a more complete manner to the customer base we talk to every single day.”
By that, Mullen means companies either looking to expand within New York State or move here. He adds that the New York ZoomProspector site also helps local or regional economic development groups across the state. Ubalde notes that there is also a nationwide version of the site which can assist businesses in making an informed decision about which states make the most sense for them. Click here to visit the New York ZoomProspector site.
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Paul Bubny
Paul Bubny is managing editor of Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. He has been reporting on business since 1988 and on commercial real estate since 2007. He is based at ALM Real Estate Media Group's offices in New York City.
