Columbiana Port Teams with Salem Center

June 28, 2011 (East Liverpool, OH) – At its meeting Monday, the port authority board announced its partnership with the Salem-based Sustainable Opportunity Development (SOD) Center to locate, identify and publish properties in the county that are available for economic development. 

The listings would be published on the Ohio InSite Database, and allow interested parties to search for properties in the county based on industry, size, location and community information, said port authority CEO Tracy Drake.

"It's a push to get more info out," Drake said. "As everybody goes to the Web and computers to do their research about what's available, we're trying to catch up with that. And internationally, it's extra critical."

Executive director of the SOD Center, Lawrence Kosiba, said listing the properties on the InSite database is an important tool not only in attracting businesses to the county, but in helping companies already here grow. The challenge, he said, is "companies aren't real good at coming to us, and yet for us to go after them one-on-one would be an almost herculean task."

Helping companies update their information on InSite gives them a chance to advertise their properties free of charge to large audiences, Kosiba said, and this partnership will make that easier, but the companies have to meet the port authority and SOD Center halfway.

"What they need to do is identify the information, take photos of the buildings and facilities and get them into either the SOD center or the port authority as soon as possible so that we can get it updated into the database," Kosiba stated. "It's impossible for us to know every facility that's out there for economic development, whether it be just empty land, empty buildings or future construction sites. We really need the public and the business centers to help us in this venture."

Read full article on The Business Journal.com

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