Escondido to unveil new Web site for business development

By: EDMOND JACOBY - Staff Writer | Monday, May 16, 2005 9:09 PM PDT ∞

ESCONDIDO ---- If you're looking for a place to locate your business, the City of Escondido has a slick new tool that it hopes you'll use.

Officially launched this morning, Escondido Property Finder is an Internet-based mapping and geographic information system program designed for the city by GIS Planning Inc. of San Francisco under an 18-month contract. The roll-out was scheduled to coincide with a Property Finder Workshop the city held today.

Anyone interested can try out the interactive Web-mapping utility by visiting http://propertyfinder.escondido.org.

"This site is geared for anybody who is looking for commercial space in the city of Escondido," said Lyn Dedmon, economic development analyst in the city's Community Development Department. Dedmon and his division manager, Joann Case, originally proposed the Web site to be a competitive tool to bring new businesses to Escondido.

"We're the only city in North County to have this," Dedmon said.

"You can use it to check the zoning of any parcel," he said.

Based on GIS Planning's ZoomProspector, the program lets visitors to the Web site select available properties from a list generated after a series of questions are answered by the site visitor. Those questions are related to property size, zoning, structure type, or other characteristics such as address or parcel number.

Once a property is identified, a long list of data about the property is returned, including statistical information about other businesses, populations, even traffic counts. The maps also feature zoning overlays, transparent windows through which the map can be seen that are color-coded to identify each property's zoning classification.

"Cities are starting to get into this to entice businesses and to stay competitive," Dedmon said. So far, in San Diego County only Chula Vista has adopted a similar Web presence, although the same program, by the same company, is being used by the Southwest California Economic Alliance, a consortium that includes the Southwest Riverside County cities of Temecula, Lake Elsinore and Murrieta.

After attending the workshop, commercial real estate professionals will be given user names and passwords that will allow them to enter properties they represent into the system, giving their properties better exposure in the real estate marketplace, Dedmon said. Bona fide real estate professionals who are unable to attend the workshop must call the Escondido Planning Office for special instruction in the use of the Web site and to be given a password.

No password will be needed for professionals and public to be able to search through the site to see what's available.

Contact staff writer Edmond Jacoby at (760) 739-6675 or ejacoby@nctimes.com.

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