Website helps find business-friendly sites
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Looking for a good place to locate a small, startup technology company in Westmoreland County?
Or perhaps you've worked as a pastry chef for several years but now want to open a bakery and you need a site with lots of foot traffic.
Or maybe your light manufacturing business is ready to expand to a larger location and your employees would love to be able to walk around town for some exercise and a bite to eat at lunchtime.
Westmoreland County has a new website, called Downtown Destinations, to help business owners find such locations.
The website displays a map of the county, highlighting 14 cities and boroughs. When you click on one of the towns, you see a map of the downtown business district that shows individual parcels and pictures of available buildings to rent or buy, and includes contacts in the local community.
It indicates the square footage of the available space, purchase price in some cases, whether the building has been recently remodeled and how much parking is available.
"The county has done a great job of marketing industrial and commercial properties, but we wanted to do something more for our downtowns," said April Kopas, executive director of the Redevelopment Authority of the County of Westmoreland.
The site has been up and running for a couple months. Mrs. Kopas said the county plans to upgrade the map, using technology to give prospective buyers a picture of the street where the properties are located.
She noted it is often cheaper to locate a new business in a downtown that already has infrastructure in place, such as water and sewer lines. Towns also have police protection and street crews to remove snow.
"A lot of businesspeople want the amenities of a downtown," she said, "whether it is going out for a sandwich at lunchtime or just not being tied to their car. We've seen that some people also want a combined space, a business or storefront on the first floor and they want to live on the upper floors."
Mrs. Kopas said downtowns have seen a decline in retail and a move to service businesses in recent years, but she said they still have room for niche retail stores.
"You need a diverse mix in a small town, a bank, a dentist, attorneys, a nice restaurant and bar, and some retail stores that are destinations," she said.
First Published February 2, 2012 4:48 am
