Location, Location, Location: Business Surveys Shed Some Light

The discussion that the town’s Economic Development Commission wanted to start with East Haven businesses has commenced.

Although less than 10 percent of the roughly 700 business surveys the commission mailed out last month have been returned, Chairman Robert Limoncelli said he has “gone through enough surveys to come up with a pattern.”

And it’s not a request to lower taxes, though that was a popular response to question No. 9: “What do you feel the town’s Economic Development Commission can do to help your business grow?”

At a recent meeting where the commission chewed over survey results, Limoncelli said a recurrent answer linked East Haven’s location to the prime reason for proprietors setting up shop in town.

Seventy-two percent of respondents said they chose East Haven as their business backdrop because of the location, the business environment and reasonable real estate prices. In addition, 41 percent of respondents said location is the town feature that most benefits their business.

However, it’s somewhat unclear what location specific to East Haven the answers are referring to since every survey was filled out anonymously, without a business name or location required.

“I wonder how much of these responses were concentrated in the center and how much on Foxon because we do have a lot of empty stores on Foxon,” said Commissioner Magdalen Sparaco. “I would surmise most of the responses came from the center area.”

Limoncelli said the commission could have color-coded the surveys to coincide with different areas of town but “there’s an integrity issue” attached to going such a route, as the surveys are clearly marked anonymous. Still, the chairman said that he is confident the responses came from contrasting areas of town and will be useful to the commission going forward.

The fact that East Haven businesses are attracted to the area because of the town’s location – i.e., minutes from New Haven, on the shoreline – might help the commission in fashioning a brand to sell to prospective businesses, said Limoncelli.

He said he plans to share this information with the East Haven Chamber of Commerce at their next meeting, as well as a Town Council subcomittee and possibly a couple private citizens. The commission will stop collecting surveys at the end of the week.

“We have to move on this,” said Limoncelli.