The two reports I use most often are the Demographic and Income Profile and the Retail MarketPlace Profile. It would be very beneficial to choose what year to pull data from. Being able to choose individual years for at least 3 - 5 years previous to compare would be great for all BAO reports. It is hard to assess the potential of selected sites based only on one year’s data for an area, for me, the two reports mentioned above would benefit me most. With several years’ worth of data, we can have a better idea of the direction an area is going. For example, my clients do not want to open a high end restaurant in an area that is experiencing a decline in median household income. However, with only one year data option, I don’t know how the area is trending. I have to look at other sources to try to determine if the area is trending a rise, decline, or steady median household income. One small town Downton Development Authority client wanted to know how their town was doing since their revitalization project and new businesses opening up. It would have been nice to have several years’ worth of data to compare to on the Retail MarketPlace Profile report. That way we could gage the revitalization project’s impact on the town better. It is still a very powerful report, but being able to compare today’s data with previous years could help make educated decisions on planning and future goals.
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