Promoting North Carolina

Several years ago, Mike Walden recommended that North Carolina establish a website listing available commercial properties in the state as a way to help attract investors. Now this information is here in the form of an app called Access North Carolina. What’s on the app? N.C. State University economist Mike Walden responds.

“And I certainly don’t take credit for this. I give all the credit to the North Carolina Department of Commerce, which indeed, developed this app. It is free. You can download it free onto your phone.

“And I think it’s a great piece of technology. I think it’s great. What this is going to do, if you do access it, is you can call up the entire state, or you can call up a particular county. “And you can look and see what kind of land is available, what are the characteristics of the land, the price of the land, what kind of commercial properties are available. Buildings may be old factories. Again, characteristics, physical characteristics, locational characteristics to see if they’re near interstates or not and price.

“And again, I think information is power. So if you’re an investor — let’s say, sitting in New York — and you want to move a factory, and you’re looking about where to move that factory. You can call up this app, and you can start screening potential locations here in North Carolina. So, this is called Access North Carolina. It’s a free download. And again, I give all the credit, give kudos to the North Carolina Department of Commerce for developing this.”