Virginia Beach Department of Economic Development

Looking for a New Business Location? We’ve Got an App for That

March 20, 2014

The Virginia Beach Department of Economic Development is launching the most innovative and first fully customized site selection app in the business. The interactive app is available through iTunes and can be downloaded for iPad. With an Internet connection, the app provides a virtual tour of Virginia Beach and serves as a search tool for available commercial real estate properties.

“The site selection business has changed remarkably in the last few years,” said Lindsey Myers, senior consultant with McCallum Sweeney Consulting. “Most companies are identifying their top choices for relocation virtually. Innovations such as the Yes Virginia Beach app push crucial information to our fingertips. This helps us more easily determine a community’s available properties, business costs, tax structures, quality of the workforce and other identifiers that are crucial for site selection decisions. ”

The Virginia Beach Department of Economic Development created the app to go beyond simply serving as a mobile version of its website. The app uses GIS imagery and mapping to provide users a customizable virtual tour of both the city and region in a format not currently available with other economic development apps.

Upon launch, the user can choose to activate various layers and visually explore those assets that are most critical to their personal decision-making process. These include business districts, infrastructure, transportation, higher education, workforce, quality of life, demographics, and major employers. It also features a real-time searchable commercial real estate function that identifies available properties according to the user’s specific requirements.

Specific features include:

Search in real-time for industrial, office and retail available properties using custom -search criteria.
Visually explore and interact with business districts, major and international employers, colleges and universities, attractions and more via selectable map layers.

Toggle through business district tabs for in-depth information and instantly view properties within each district.
Review and compare demographics for Virginia Beach business districts and neighborhoods, as well as the Hampton Roads region.
Learn more about Virginia Beach's business costs, workforce and target industries.
Explore the benefits to relocate your business to Virginia Beach.

“We are thrilled to lead the way with this new technology,” said Warren D. Harris, director of Virginia Beach Economic Development. “Our prospects and clients are looking at Virginia Beach from around the world, and this app allows us to push our assets and strengths to them in a completely customizable format. We’ll continue to release new layers through the App Store to improve our prospects virtual experience.”

Virginia Beach is Virginia’s most populous city with 447,000 residents, in a metropolitan area of 1.7 million people. The Department of Economic Development has been previously acknowledged through the International Economic Development Alliance for its innovative digital marketing program. Over the past year, the Virginia Beach Economic Development Department has converted all its marketing materials to interactive electronic formats and uses iPads for all prospecting activity. To review and download available materials, visit https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/virginia-beach.

The mission of the Virginia Beach Department of Economic Development is to attract and retain national and international businesses to stimulate capital investment and create jobs. Virginia Beach is the most populous city in Virginia with a population of 447,000, and it is the 37th largest in the United States. It is recognized as one of the best run cities in America by 24/7 Wall St. The Department of Economic Development received re-accreditation through the International Economic Development Council in 2012 and is one of only 29 economic development organizations in the world to have this recognition. Virginia Beach has been recognized as the Top 7 Big City Leading the U.S. Manufacturing Revival by Forbes. It is listed among the Top Five Overall Mid-Sized American Cities of the Future, Top 10 for Economic Potential and Top Five for Infrastructure by fDi Magazine. CNNMoney.com ranked Virginia Beach as the Easiest Place to Start a Business and the Second Most Business-Friendly City in the country. For more information, visit www.yesvirginiabeach.com.

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