Buffalo Niagara Enterprise and NYSCAR launch new listing system

Buffalo Niagara Enterprise (BNE), the region's eight county marketing, business and economic development organization, and the WNY Chapter of the New York State Commercial Association of Realtors (NYSCAR), today announced their partnership with GIS Planning which has resulted in the launch of a new commercial listing system for the Buffalo Niagara region. Having been only previously used by state level groups, the new website and its cutting edge capabilities will be the first of its kind ever employed by a regional organization. It will provide for use by the commercial real estate industry and the public-at-large, free demographic, business and labor force data not previously in this free and user friendly format. Driven by GIS Planning's technology known as ZoomProspector, the newly enhanced www.buffaloniagaracls.com goes far beyond a simple database of available sites and buildings. It provides the needed site selection analysis information that businesses require to identify the unique geographic advantages and business opportunities in our community. "In today's world of corporate real estate and site selection, there has been a shift away from compiling hard facts on countless communities, and a trend towards relying on the communities' ability to effectively relay information on community data and real estate," said BNE president & CEO Thomas Kucharski. "We joined with our colleagues at NYSCAR in selecting GIS Planning to stay current with these trends and implement a system that will complement our real estate data with dynamic demographic, labor and business data at an unparalleled level." ZoomProspector technology has become the industry standard, fostering the largest national partnership of economic development organizations, corporate real estate professionals, and site location experts facilitating economic development on the internet. Real estate professionals in the Buffalo Niagara region who list their sites through the new service will benefit from the national attention the website will receive as a result of ZoomProspector's partnerships with leading corporate site selection magazines including Site Selection, Business Facilities, and Business Xpansion Journal. Other value added features include: * Demographics based on user input for distance or drive time, including consumer expenditure * Workforce and business data within a chosen geography (i.e.: firms by type, employees and product, giving a client the ability to see competition, potential synergies and local supply chain) * Demographic heat maps * Community reports * Customized Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping layers (i.e.: distance to ports, airports, highways, geographic incentives, etc...) * Google based mapping with Google Streetview and Google Earth integration * Greater ease of property uploads The new website also strengthens the partnership between the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise and commercial real estate professionals with BNE promoting available properties and real estate professionals assisting in attracting new and better jobs to the region. "We are reaching out to the entire commercial brokerage community, and inviting all New York State licensed brokers to include their exclusive commercial listings in the new System, completely free of charge," emphasized John Fletcher, President of the WNY Chapter of NYSCAR. "Because there are no fees or other barriers to entry, the new Buffalo Niagara Commercial Listing System will ultimately deliver the most comprehensive and accessible database of exclusive commercial real estate listings in the Western New York region. The system can be accessed and browsed for free by anyone at anytime, maximizing marketing exposure for all properties in the system." BNE and NYSCAR officials noted that because the comprehensive community data and demographic information would be available to the public, the new system would be a valuable resource for entrepreneurs, start-ups and other small businesses that in the past would have found it too costly and too difficult to access that kind of information from disparate sources. They also noted that the continued partnership between the BNE and the WNY NYSCAR Chapter on a commercial listing service is good news for both the local real estate community and BNE's efforts to market our region. "We're all very excited about continuing our working relationship on this new venture with GIS Planning and the unveiling of this new platform to support the Buffalo Niagara Commercial Listing System because of the positive message it sends to the corporate community and the companies in our targeted industry clusters," said Kucharski. "Over 90% of initial site selection screening is done on-line now, and the immediate access to critical business development and site specific information provided through the new system tells people that we are a progressive community that is serious about attracting their business investment," Kucharski concluded. For more information on including exclusive listings on www.BuffaloNiagaraCLS.com, request a free account by emailing [email protected], or visiting www.wnynyscar.com.