Metropolitan areas across the country have been attracting new businesses with online commercial real estate information for almost a decade. Minneapolis–St. Paul lagged behind others until a collaboration between public and private sectors produced a new Web site last year.
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Scouting Outstate Online commercial property databases for Greater Minnesota. Southern Minnesota Albert Lea—growalbertlea.com
St. Cloud—scapartnership.com Northern Minnesota Brainerd—bladc.org Statewide Minnesota —N. B. |
MetroMSP.org is a one-stop site for businesses looking for space in the Twin Cites metro area. Users can find marketplace data, demographics, and commercial or industrial real estate listings from not just Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Bloomington, but all 11 counties in the metro area.
The group behind the site includes Xcel Energy, Wells Fargo, Kraus Anderson, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, and several other companies and organizations. It was convened by the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce, which now administers the site. The chamber’s president and CEO, Todd Klingel, called the site an important economic development tool that represents the entire region as one united opportunity for expansion and growth of companies.
Klingel says that while buyers have been turning to the Web for information, a company interested in establishing a business in the Twin Cities had to surf several sites and spend a lot of time gathering the information that is now collected on MetroMSP. “In the past, our community has not done well in presenting itself as one exciting product, with all the resources, features, and benefits the region has to offer,” Klingel says. “We realized that we needed to wake up and engage in this new dimension.”
When the chamber approached the Minnesota Commercial Association of Realtors (MNCAR), an Edina-based organization that maintains a commercial property database, the association quickly signed on to the project. MetroMSP showcases MNCAR properties, which are provided to the site free and updated weekly.
The chamber then approached several companies and organizations, including the major cities and counties in the region; built an alliance of 17 organizations; and put together a planning and organizing committee. The two-year pilot project raised $500,000 from its private and public partners.
Web site Features
MetroMSP users can search for properties by building type, minimum and maximum size, and location. The property listings include photos, tax information, work force demographics, and competitors within a specified area. Each property links to a map that displays highways, airports, railroads, schools, retail centers, bodies of water, and parks in the vicinity.
Users can also look for publicly owned redevelopment sites in the region, which is an unusual feature. The site is one of the first in the country to have it. “If a city has an old jail, or an old junior high building, and they want to find a reuse for it, they usually cannot promote it if it isn’t represented by a commercial broker,” says Anne Hunter, who was part of the team that developed the site and president of Marketing Sources USA, an economic development marketing company based in Edina. “Now we have a way for communities to put those kind of sites or properties up on MetroMSP.”
According to Hunter, the Web site is the first in the state to use a geographic information system (GIS), which was designed by San Francisco–based GIS Planning, Inc. The system shows demographic and consumer information taken from the Census Bureau and state and federal governments. Listings are placed in a context with socio-economic and environmental data and land use records.
Marketing Source USA created the site narrative, which serves as a “front door” to the site and showcases the benefits of locating a company in the metro area. “We sell the region as a destination,” Hunter says. “Our users do not have to go from county to county or city to city to find out which areas they want to do business in.”
The site’s “Why MetroMSP?” section highlights national rankings of the region’s economic vitality, education and literacy, transportation and infrastructure, and quality of life. Users can also find information on Minnesota’s corporate tax climate and financing and incentive programs in the region.
Hunter says that unlike economic development Web sites in other markets, MetroMSP.org answers both sides of the site-selection question—why a company would want to establish a base in the region, and which is the ideal site to meet its needs.
According to Hunter, the volume generated on the site since its launch has been more than four times the usage of some more established economic development sites in other regions of the country. She says that so far, it has been a very successful partnership, bringing together organizations that have never worked together before. “Now we are poised to do other kinds of collaborative efforts which can only help the region,” Hunter adds. “This is one of the side benefits that we did not anticipate, but are pleased to have.”
This article was published originally as “Siting a Location” in the September 2009 issue of Twin Cities Business on page 73.