PORT TOWNSEND — The sponsors of an inventory website that catalogues downtown and uptown buildings in Port Townsend are contacting business and property owners to add specific information to make the site more useful.
“This is a great tool for businesses to look around to see what’s available, whether they want to locate their business from out of town or relocate it from another local area,” said Mari Mullen, executive director of the Port Townsend Main Street Program, which sponsors the site.
“It’s a free marketing tool that can let people know what’s available in a certain space, providing information about rent and size of each property,” she said.
The page has been online since November 2013, “but not a lot of people are using it,” according to Web designer Frank DePalma, who built the site.
This might change if more people know about the site and that it contains useful information, he said.
To educate potential participants, Main Street will host open instruction from 9 a.m. to noon every Friday beginning Oct. 16 at its office, 211 Taylor St., Suite 3.
Main Street has entered data and historical information about each building. Now, Main Street officials hope that business and building owners will provide details that will make the site come alive.
The inventory includes all buildings on Water Street and Washington Street from the ferry terminal to the Northwest Maritime Center.
In the uptown district, it includes buildings along Lawrence Street from Van Buren Street to Taylor Street.
The first level of information colorcodes the buildings to indicate if they are for sale or for rent.
The static aerial view allows the user to highlight a building and see tax information, square footage and building history.
Main Street is encouraging building and business owners to add specific information such as the nature of the business, rental cost for vacant spaces and a percentage of different types of businesses in each building.
Access is only for the specific property, DePalma said, as business owners cannot enter information about other buildings or vice versa.
“It’s good to have accurate information about each building, so we are giving people the ability to enter information themselves,” DePalma said.
He added that a building or business owner who doesn’t have time to enter the data can send information to him so he can enter it for them.
Mullen said it could be a hard sell getting owners to log on, but once they do so, “they’ll see that it’s really easy.”
DePalma said he hoped that new users will suggest features they would like to see on the site, such as the ability to search buildings or businesses.
This could involve searching by square footage or getting a list of all the pizza places in town.
Mullen said the page will be valuable for real estate agents, who can link to their website from a property that is for sale or for rent.
To view the page, go to www.ptmainbbi.org.
For more information, go to ptmainstreet.org or call 360-385-7911.
________
Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
