5. EDSR 09-11-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Appendix B: Industrial Broker Focus Group Executive Summary A 90-minute focus group was held Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2006, at Elk River City Hall with four commercial real estate bxokexs specializing in industrial properties who axe active in the Elk River area. The goal of the session was to explore attitudes and beliefs regarding the industrial development environment in Elk River and the rest of the Northwest Metro area Some of the notable comments were: ^ Where the business owner or business executive hues - ox wants to live'- tends to be the most important factor in making industrial site selection decisions. Transportation access and the net cost (after land write-downs and/ox tax abatements) are also important. Also mentioned were: proximity to an appropriate work force, to vendors and to clients. ^ The owners of most small, privately owned businesses tend to worry more about cost, the bxokexs agreed, whereas the executives of most large publicly traded companies don't worry as much about cost. Corporate executives tend to be more concerned with transportation access, improving efficiency with a new facility and other issues, they said. The brokers seemed to agree that users focusing on financial incentives were not concentrating on the issues that would be the most important in the long run. ^ Businesses usually don't start the site selection process with a specific community in mind. They will target a general area that might include several communities. But their specific criteria for the site (as long as it's in their primary geographic target area) tend to be more important that the city in which it is located. ^ Brokers begin their search fox industrial sites by checking listings, networking with other bxokexs and contacting cities. ^ Elk River and Rogers axe perceived to have few available industrial sites. "From an industrial perspective, you've got nothing to sell right now," one broker said. Big Lake and Otsego both have major new projects in the works that should create more industrial development opportunities, they said, although Duke's Otsego project is expected to focus on leased space. ^ After selecting a site, businesses' biggest concerns tend to be employee retention and how they will be impacted as the city continues to grow and develop. ^ Because bxokexs network and share information, they axe an important and influential target market. Yet, the brokers in the focus group seemed to be in agreement that cities do a poor job of marketing to the broker community. B1