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. Deregulation of the electric utility industry The electric utility industry is the last major regulated monopoly in America. In recent years, airlines, banking, natural gas, and telecommunications have all undergone deregulation. No one is certain how quickly deregulation will occur, but many states and electric utilities are preparing for the challenges and opportunities certain to evolve in a competitive arena. The electric utility industry and its stakeholders are now examining ways to bring the benefits of competition to all industrial and commercial customers. Residential customers also want to benefit from competition as well. Because of the competitive environment that is occurring, the once shared technology forum that has been common to the electric utilities may disappear. The sharing of how one utility maps its electric line assets may be limited to the vendor doing more research and development in order to share ideas and sell software. Since the competition is gearing up, so will the need for better ways to map the utility service areas and beyond. Knowing where your competitors' customers are may require mapping to strategically plot their locations. If Detroit Edison has a customer on the east coast, it maybe advantageous to know the mapping of the other utilities assets connecting to that business. This may help for reporting purposes in the case of a power outage by that customer. Also, it can be useful to target market that customer's suppliers or other customers in that region. New technology ideas for the future Detroit Edison's Site Selection Service Database is employing new ways to utilize the World Wide Web and AM/FM/GIS technology. Intergraph's GeoMedia Web Map helps economic development professionals lure more businesses to southeast Michigan. With all site information on the Internet, it is an easy task for a future customer to find that right location. Some of the new technology that Edison's Site Selection database is employing are: (1) Photobubble technology, (2) Public Record Data, and (3) Video Clips, showing helicopter views of the Detroit Metropolitan area.
The DTE Energy's Site Selection Service contains detailed information about properties in southeastern Michigan. The service, at http://www.dtesites.com, went on-line April 30, 1997. | ||
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