Wake County Focus on Product Development

Wake County Economic Development (WCED) needed a boost to its site inventory. Staff identified a need to have a more robust inventory of sites to be competitive. As a site consultant once told me, “If I have not selected your site the last ten times I’ve looked at it, chances are I will not select it this time.” WCED needed a way to identify and assess potential industrial sites to expand the inventory. They used CreativeSiteAssessment.com, our online proprietary tool, to find and rank almost 5,000 acres of potential industrial land.CSA Logo

WCED sent an RFI, developed by Creative EDC, to each municipality to request data on potential sites. Staff assessed each site through our online site tool. The tool assigns a score to each site based on three categories: utilities, transportation, and site characteristics. WCED divided the sites into three tiers based on score: Tier 1 scored less than 62, Tier 2 scored 62 – 74.5, and Tier 3 scored above 75. WCED developed a strategy for each tier of sites.

  • Tier 3 sites, nine in total, were given the opportunity to make a site presentation to a group of Wake County EDGE investors (private sector investors) who are involved in site development (engineers, developers, architects). The team was given feedback on the quality of the site and their presentation. This was a huge success. The local team now knows how to better position the site for projects.
  • Tier 2 sites, twelve in total, were assigned a service provider team made up of Wake County EDGE investors. The service providers team visited the site, assisted with due diligence recommendations, and made suggestions on how to enhance the site. The goal was to improve these twelve sites to be better prepared for development.
  • Tier 1 sites, four in total, were given an RFI exercise to help them better gather information on the site. Staff made recommendations for site improvements, similar to recommendations that would be made by a consultant or prospect.

Ashely Cagle, Director of Talent and Product Development, said, “We could not have tackled a project of this magnitude without the CreativeSiteAssessment.com tool. It provided us a framework to review thousands of acres and prioritize them for our product development strategy.”

Learn more about the tool and how your product development program can benefit click here.

 

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