The Commercial/Industrial Database Project will ultimately produce a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based database of all commercial and industrial buildings in Vermont that are 2,000 square feet or greater in area.

This project, started in 1999, is a statewide collaborative effort involving Regional Planning Commissions (RPC) and Regional Development Corporations (RDC) in all twelve regions of Vermont. For this project, the RPCs are the lead organizations and are responsible for actual development of the databases and the related Geographic Information System (GIS) components.

Starting in 1995, several RPCs/RDCs have independently been developing similar data. The State of Vermont recognized the value of having such information available state-wide, and therefore began funding the development of a Commercial/Industrial Database across all regions of Vermont in FY2000.

The resulting information will be useful to towns and other local groups in many ways, but one principle aim is for RPCs to create the databases and GIS applications to support the RDCs in their work to develop and market Vermont’s commercial and industrial resources. Maintaining this information in an up-to-date and accessible format is a significant and worthwhile commitment.

The heart of the Commercial/Industrial database project is a database file containing information on each qualifying commercial or industrial building. Accompanying the structures database file are two important additional components of this project, a GIS file showing the precise location of each structure, and a digital photograph of that structure. This database file contains much information on each structure. Some of this information includes:

One can access the three components of this project—the database, the GIS structure location file, and the digital photograph—on a computer using GIS software. ESRI’s ArcView software, running in each RPC office and in many state agencies, is the primary choice.

With this software, it is possible to display the database contents and photograph of a structure simply by pointing to a building’s location on the screen. One can also identify a structure in the database and then have its location highlighted.

ESRI’s ArcExplorer, a free, public domain software package, allows anyone with a computer to access this information (minus the photographs). Even without GIS software, the data, while not interactive, are still available to all. The database is in a basic DBASE format, which nearly all of today’s database software can read, and the photographs, in JPEG format, can be viewed using the accessory software included in most computer’s operating systems.

The real utility of this database becomes apparent when other publicly-available Vermont GIS data are included. This gives planners and economic development officials a vast amount of information at their fingertips.

For example, a person could locate all industrial structures over 5000 square feet that are within two miles of an Interstate interchange. With issues of sprawl receiving attention in Vermont, one could look at square footages and dates of construction for commercial buildings both inside and outside a town’s downtown district, or one could examine the industrial growth that has taken place in an area that recently gained access to municipal sewer lines.

All twelve regional projects are underway. Although varying significantly in their current stages of development, they are being coordinated to result in a fully compatible statewide data set. In some cases, the list of potential sites still consists of all E-911 identified commercial and industrial sites—they have not yet been winnowed to those at least 2,000 square feet in area—and so a precise number of statewide sites is not yet known. But based on the data from the nine regions that are past this point, it is estimated that approximately 7,500 commercial and industrial facilities will ultimately be included.

As of December 1999 "raw data" have been collected for approximately 3,000 facilities in eight regions. Of those, data on approximately 2,200 facilities have been processed and entered into the regional database.

In June 2000, it is expected that data on approximately one-half of all appropriate commercial and industrial facilities in Vermont—or about 3,750 facilities that are over 2,000 square feet in area—will have been completely field-checked, catalogued, photographed and entered into a database.

Recognizing the variations in regional data that are available at the start of each project, each region has customized its work appropriately to address regional priorities and to ensure useful products at interim points. Establishing those priorities and ensuring on-going accuracy and effective use of the data will be an important and continuing cooperative effort by the RPCs and RDCs.

One RPC, for example, has begun by focusing on all industrial and light manufacturing facilities, and only those, because they are the RDC’s priority for completion in Phase I. Other regions have prioritized the work by town, focusing first on commercial and industrial centers. A few regions began this project with substantial work already done in prior years. These regions should complete the database for all facilities in FY2000.

Each region will develop products that best suit the intended use by the RDCs and RPCs.

The databases, however, contain a core set of data that will be uniform statewide.