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Somerville recently launched a new online tool that helps business owners and entrepreneurs in their search for a location in the city.
The “Somerville SiteFinder” arose from the need to connect small business owners, who make up a significant part of the local economy, with property owners and brokers, according to Somerville Economic Development Director Edward O’Donnell.
The website (www.somervillema.gov/sitefinder) identifies every available commercial property in the city. On the homepage, pushpin icons on a Google map represent the roughly 30 properties currently available. For each site, information is provided on the type of building, its square footage, and the rate per square foot.
Most significantly, the website puts the searcher directly in touch with the site’s broker, O’Donnell said.
The city subscribes to Loopnet.com, a commercial real estate listing site that provides SiteFinder with up-to-date property listings.
SiteFinder, which went live in September, helped attract the medical engineering company Tissue Vision, which has ties to MIT. Tissue Vision is now housed in a Somerville business park not far from the Cambridge line.
The majority of the available sites are in Somerville’s eastern half, historically the more industrial part of the city.