Your company has just decided to proceed with an expansion project, and you’ve been put in charge of the site selection process. The CEO hands you a list of parameters to work with and sends you on your way.

Those parameters might include that a certain percentage of the population must have a bachelor’s or master’s degree, or a reputable community college with a solid work force retraining program must be located in the vicinity. The company might want to locate in an urban setting with access to broadband, or it might want a suburban setting with easy access to the freeway or airport.

The scope of your search might encompass a region, state or the entire nation.

It can be a daunting task to gather all of this information in a timely manner so the company can make a well-informed decision on where to site that new manufacturing facility or research and development office.

The first instinct might lead an executive to contact local economic development offices. But depending on how large of a geographical area you have to choose, that could be an overwhelming endeavor.

It might be daunting, but it’s not impossible to gather the needed information from many communities in a particular region or state in one stop. Utility companies can be an effective point of contact for any company interested in relocating to a new region.

In some instances, utility companies will point perspective companies to a state or local economic development agency. But in other cases, utilities will act as the economic development agency.

“Utilities know the people,” said Cindy Marzofka, executive director of the Utility Economic Development Association (UEDA). “They can help a business make the right contacts and provide insight on other projects located in the area. They can give a business a heads-up on whether its project might succeed in a particular community. If it won’t succeed in that community, the utility company can direct them to a place where the project would be more welcome.”

Utility companies have to know just about everything there is to know about their service areas. They need to know where the best sites to locate a new facility, whether it would be difficult to properly power that location, or whether upgrades to the infrastructure would be needed.

A lot of high quality demographic and other information necessary for a company to make a relocation decision can also be gleaned from a utility company.

“Many utilities have spent a great deal of time and money building up and managing good site databases,” said Mark M. Sweeney, senior principal for Greenville, S.C.,-based McCallum Sweeney Consulting. “In some places, utilities play a major role as a primary source of contact.”

If it’s not the first point of contact, then utilities are usually part of an economic development team that will attempt to lure company to its region.

That in turn leads to job creation, economic growth and an improved tax base.

“It becomes a win-win situation for everyone involved,” said Dan Olmstead, manager of community relations for Idaho Power Co.

Yet, despite these positive attributes, a utility company can be an underutilized asset in the site selection process.

“A corporate official who doesn’t frequently do site searches might be less aware of how valuable a utility can be,” said Don Bernhard, manager of community and economic development for PPL Corp.

Knowledgeable About an Entire Region

One important aspect of a utility company is its reach over a large geographical area.

PPL in central and eastern Pennsylvania offers services in 29 counties and has 1.3 million customers. The Alabama Electric Cooperative Inc.’s member-owners serve more than 800,000 customers in 39 Alabama counties and 10 Northwest Florida counties. Idaho Power Co. serves more than 400,000 customers in the southern portion of the state.

These utilities need to have intimate knowledge of the infrastructure, real estate and other pertinent facts about each community within their service areas. Most utilities put this information on their Web sites, meaning prospective companies can search for information in an anonymous fashion at their leisure.

“In the early stages of site selection, people don’t want to be hounded,” Bernhard said. “They just want access to the data so they can begin comparing sites. When they’re ready to talk, they’ll initiate the discussion.”

PPL maintains an extensive listing of site and demographic information on its Web page. More than 1,000 properties are detailed on the database, and companies can search according to their needs.

After companies find potential locations, PPL uses Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to marry a company’s perspective site to a database so it can download demographic information in a radius around the site.

Alabama Electric Cooperative, on behalf of its member systems, maintains an extensive economic development link on its Web site that includes available buildings, including square footage and descriptions, industrial sites and facts about all communities in its service area.

Making a Convincing Argument

PPL was able to help Nova Cruz Products Inc. when it went looking for a manufacturing site for its electric scooter.

The Dover, N.H.,-based company manufactures its Voloci brand electric motorbike in an 18,000 square foot facility in Scranton, Pa., partially because of information provided by PPL. The company is expected to employ 335 workers by 2004.

PPL and Scranton community officials accompanied company executives on tours through numerous sites in the area in search of suitable space.

The company also was able to tap into the Sustainable Energy Fund of Central Eastern Pennsylvania, of which PPL is a member. The fund provides flexible financing for projects that promote renewable energy, advanced clean energy technologies or energy conservation.

In Alabama, which has seen a slew of expansion projects involving automobile manufacturing in recent years, the Alabama Electric Cooperative (AEC) has played a prominent role — no matter whether an AEC member company or another utility will power the facility, said Louis Lockhart, industrial marketing representative for AEC.

“We try to sell the entire state,” he said. “We work for statewide economic development, whether we service that particular company.”

The new Honda project in Lincoln, Ala., is an example. AEC member Coosa Valley is providing utility service for the automaker’s on-site training center, while Alabama Power Co. provides utility center for the main manufacturing facility.

AEC provided infrastructure and utility information as Hyundai was searching for its new manufacturing facility. An AEC representative was part of the presentation made to Hyundai executives.

This despite that AEC will not serve $1 billion Hyundai manufacturing facility in Montgomery.

But AEC member companies will provide utility services to some of the companies relocating to Alabama to supply Hyundai, as well as Honda.

The Idaho Power Co. has been instrumental in luring a number of companies to southern Idaho, including Dell Computer, which selected Twin Falls, Idaho, for a new customer and technical support center.

“We were contacted early in the process,” Olmstead said. “We spent quite a bit of time working with [company executives] to make sure they had the information they needed to make a decision. We think we helped them make their final decision.”

Idaho Power also played a role when Clear Shield National, a Chicago-based manufacturer of plastic utensils, selected Twin Falls as the site for its new manufacturing facility in the West to serve its growing California market.

During the site selection process, Clear Shield look a number of communities, but eventually pared the list down to three: Twin Falls and two communities in Utah.

Olmstead represented Idaho Power when community and state officials put together a team to present the Twin Falls case to executives.

Clear Shield selected Twin Falls for the facility.

“We are an essential piece of the infrastructure that goes with any expansion or relocation project,” Olmstead said. “We’ve become part of the upfront effort if there is an expansion or relocation project in the works.”

Utility’s Role in the Future

As state budgets continue to feel the effects of the economic slowdown, one of the first areas to get cut is an economic development agency.

“A lot of state organizations are financially under duress,” Lockhart said. “As people leave or retire, they are not being replaced as a result of cost-cutting measures. This is where utilities can step up.”

That means the potential of utilities as a valuable source of information for a company on the fast track for and expansion project is only going to increase.

“Utilities have an extensive amount of information available to help compare the hard facts on various sites,” UEDA’s Marzofka said. “They also have the relationships established with community, regional and state leaders who can help make a difference in cutting through red tape and getting a project done quickly to meet a business’ needs and deadlines.”

PPL’s Bernhard added, “Utilities are an excellent source of high-quality information on how to make things happen in a region.”

Ken Krizner is managing editor of Expansion Management magazine. He can be reached at kkrizner@penton.com.