Hanover County hopes a geographic-information system that provides data on anything from median salaries to the number of children per household will give the county an economic competitive edge.

The Site LoGIStics system on Hanover's economic-development Web site shows aerial photos of about 120 available commercial spaces. It contains information on how a property is zoned, its square footage, how much it costs to buy or lease, what types of utilities it has and the distance to the nearest interstate or airport.

It also provides demographic data from 2006 and projections for 2011 on the number of people living nearby, their education level, household net worth and the number of children, a useful statistic for someone opening a day-care business, for example.

The data are searchable to 15 miles outside the county.

Hanover is paying about $12,000 for the service this year, said Susan K. Deusebio, the county's deputy director of economic development.

Timmons Group, a privately-held company based in Chesterfield County, developed the system, which involved integrating Hanover's GIS system with the demographic information.

Timmons chose Hanover as a pilot community for the product and hopes eventually to offer it elsewhere, company principal Randy Trott said.

Marc Weiss, Hanover's economic-development director, says the system allows new businesses and companies considering a move to Hanover to learn about their competition or potential customers near an office space.

Kevin Cox, who works in commercial real estate in Hanover, said the system saves him time he used to spend consulting multiple sources over several days to compile demographic information for clients.

"It lets businesses know that Hanover County has their act together -- that they know their market," said Cox of Porter Realty Inc.

"People don't like to go to areas where they can't find the information. They tend to skip over to the next locality that has it."

Weiss estimated that there are about 3,500 businesses in Hanover.

To visit Site LoGIStics, go to the county's economic-development Web site at www.hanovercounty.biz.
Contact Reed Williams at (804) 615-8198 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com.

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