'Light years ahead': online search tool provides customized market information for Anchorage, and Mat-Su and Kenai boroughs.

• Author: Resz, Heather A.
• Position: BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

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Ever since some long-ago human invented the wheel, generations of descendents have invented new ways to make their lives easier.

Introduced to Alaskans in October, Anchorage Economic Development Corp.'s new online research tool offers free customized market research and commercial property listings in Anchorage, Mat-Su, and Kenai Peninsula boroughs.

And like that long-ago wheel, AnchorageProspector.com will take its time to figure out all the possible ways the free service can benefit Alaska businesses.

"This is the new cutting-edge tool you have to have if you're going to be competitive with other regions and states," said Bill Popp, president & CEO of the Anchorage Economic Development Corp. (AEDC).

Primarily, the Web site is a high-tech search tool, but site selectors anywhere in the world can navigate it to access detailed demographic data about Southcentral Alaska.

Popp said the first phase of site selection is now done online. "If you don't have that data readily available you're just out. You're not even considered."

In the past, it was labor intensive to collect site selection data and that limited how many communities site selectors could profile, he said. Today, site selectors can profile a couple of hundred communities in a short amount of time and use their on-the-ground time to verify data, Popp said.

Now site selectors can visit one site, AncorageProspector.com, to consider locations anywhere within the Anchorage, Kenai Peninsula or Mat-Su boroughs.

The combined search tool offers site selectors--a means to gather market information about the entire Southcentral area, he said.

"Everybody's working together for the good of the region," Popp said.

After signing a memorandum of agreement to represent the tri-borough area in business recruitment efforts, the Anchorage Economic Development Corp. applied jointly for a United States Department of Agriculture Rural Economic Development grant to cover half the cost of the $64,000 tool. Popp said the joint application was successful and saved a combined $116,000 over the cost of each community subscribing to the service separately.

LOST OPPORTUNITIES

When Popp came on board a year and a half ago, he said he recalls being contacted by a few folks looking for demographic data to deliver to the site selector. It took several weeks for staff to collect the market data the company requested.

"We'd stopped getting calls from national site selectors," Popp said. "We were...