Utah economic developers have a SURE thing for companies looking at putting operations in the state.
The SURE Sites program, an online database with maps and data about available property for possible industrial and office use, has been launched by the Economic Development Corp. of Utah and several partners. SURE stands for "Select Utah Real Estate."
Available at www.edcutah.org and www.utahsuresites.com, SURE Sites features site descriptions, population and work force data, community information, infrastructure details and other information useful for companies or the site selectors they hire.
"The issue is making companies and consultants aware that there are sites in these communities," Michael Flynn, vice president of public development for EDCU, said at a recent technology event. "I think where the SURE Sites program can help is gather the information and really start to market it in parts of the state where they don't get as much notoriety and not enough awareness of just what's available."
The Governor's Office of Economic Development asked EDCU to implement SURE Sites. EDCU spoke to economic development officials, end users, developers and others to set up criteria after months of research, which was followed by focus group study. Eventually, a 60-page, 250-question application process emerged, and it has been streamlined to 14 pages and 61 questions for organizations with available land.
Flynn said many states have "certified" site programs or are developing them, with varying levels of cost and data detail. Utah's is free. Users can find maps and data and then screen out selections by size or other criteria. More-detailed information becomes available as users drill down to specific sites, and documents and attachments may be downloaded.
The program is still in its relative infancy, with 11 sites available.
"I do want to stress that this is open to everybody. If you're a local economic developer, if you're a landowner, a developer, real estate agent, we invite everybody and we encourage everybody to participate," Flynn said.
"My opinion is it probably needs upwards of 100 to 150 sites to really make this usable on an ongoing basis. I think we can easily handle that many. I think every county in the state should have at least two sites — maybe one more remote and one more close to infrastructure to access. I think in some urban parts of the state, every city could have a site."
Flynn noted that site selectors and companies scouting for land are doing their work faster than in the past and want fewer "surprises" as they pick where to locate. By the time they contact EDCU for information, they likely have narrowed their choices to a handful of cities and perhaps even specific sites, he said.
Jeff Edwards, president and chief executive officer of EDCU, said the site selector community is small — perhaps only about 1,000 in the United States — but they account for 75 percent to 80 percent of site inquires to EDCU. The remainder come from individual companies, he said.
"This is essentially ... how do we get them here on the ground?" Flynn said. "Do we present enough information to them on enough sites that they can say, 'You know what? There's three sites. They're viable, I've got the questions answered I need. Let me go take a look at Utah.' ... What we're talking about here is what I call a first or second screen, (that) it's worth coming to Utah to take a look at the site."
As an example, Utah has one location with 1,200 feet of frontage along an airport with a 7,500-foot runway. "You're not going to find a lot of sites like that probably in the country, and we want to make sure that the consultants are aware of specific details and why these sites are important," he said.
Flynn said the next steps in SURE Sites' development are a marketing campaign to boost awareness, minor changes to the application, increasing mapping functionality by perhaps adding topographic and elevation information, and increasing the number of sites. This year's focus is locations for possible industrial and office development. Next year could see a similar program for existing buildings.
Partners in the program include GOED, Rocky Mountain Power, GIS Planning Inc. and the Utah Automated Geographic Reference Center.
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com