Spiders and flies and economic development
K. Scott Fleming
Analyst, Policy and Programs
Detroit Edison Company
2000 Second Avenue, Room 374 WCB
Detroit, MI 48262
Phone: (313) 235-8965
On-line access: A new economic development tool
Utilities have long been at the forefront of economic development within their communities.
Now businesses trying to find the perfect place to call their corporate home have a new tool to
find buildings and land sites and get energy information at the same time. With graphically
supported Internet sites, it is possible to combine the exact elements needed to find a site
location for a business. By combining real estate information, along with infrastructure data,
aerial photos, and most important AM/FM/GIS mapping, it's possible for a business to select
the right location on-line. Most on-line site location databases allow their customers access to
the Internet site database (i.e., Detroit Edison& American Electric Power Company).
Historically, site selection was a laborious, manual process. It generally took economic
developers several days to assemble what they hoped were the right building and land sites for a
businesses to choose from. Many times the prospective business was "lost" due to insufficient
property information, or simply because the process took too long. Today, with over 3,000 sites
on-line, the window of opportunity for Detroit Edison Economic Development Team is much
greater. We can provide clients with the convenient ability to "shop at home" with an extensive
array of real estate at their fingertips.
The site information that comprises Edison's database has been difficult to compile. Available
sites are listed with numerous real estate brokers throughout the Detroit Metro region. These
brokers were initially hesitant to provide their information for inclusion in a searchable database
for fear of substantially decreasing their sales commissions. So, we first had to establish a
positive relationship with area brokers and assure them that economic developers were not
competing for their commissions. Rather, economic developers had the classic goal of attracting
and retaining businesses and creating jobs. Once the brokers understood the purpose of the
database, they became very cooperative in sharing their listings, and were quite interested in
having access to the system themselves.
Unlike the residential real estate market, this area of real estate (Industrial, Commercial, and
Office) does not have a Multiple Listing Service (database with all real estate home listings) that
all real estate companies or brokers participate in. Subsequently, the economic developers from
the utilities and the local government levels continue to canvas for raw real estate information.
At Detroit Edison, this information is combined with the company's land base AM/FM/GIS
data, along with photographs and added infrastructure data (i.e., water, sewer, wetlands data, and
EPA information).
Inclusion of infrastructure information facilitates the customer's decision making process. For
example, if a company wants to build a steel plant on a parcel of property they may first want to
know what the public water capacity might be, along with other utility information. Having this
data avaliable online can expedite the decision making process and create new jobs with new
load for Detroit Edison.
