Every Community Has Potential: Oklahoma Commerce Uses GIS to Help Sites Get Noticed

From major metropolitan areas to rural towns, Oklahoma offers a diverse range of opportunities for business growth and investment. Serving more than 4 million residents across Oklahoma’s 77 counties, the Oklahoma Department of Commerce (Oklahoma Commerce) works to attract employers, create jobs, and strengthen local economies.

For businesses evaluating locations, identifying the right place to expand is more than finding available property. Oklahoma Commerce needed a way to bring property, workforce, infrastructure, and market data together so businesses could make more informed location decisions. Because site selection has become increasingly data-driven, it has become imperative to advance the technology within their organization.

To take steps in that direction, Oklahoma Commerce developed LocateOK.com, a site selection web platform built with geographic information system (GIS) technology, to support business attraction efforts and connect organizations with opportunities throughout Oklahoma. LocateOK brings property, workforce, infrastructure, demographic, and market information together in an interactive map, making it easier for businesses to evaluate locations, compare options, and identify places that align with their operational needs and growth strategies.

Oklahoma Commerce recognized that many communities already possess the assets businesses look for when considering relocation or expansion, including available sites, workforce talent, transportation access, and development-ready properties. Gathering and verifying information on these assets often requires manual coordination among economic development organizations (EDOs), local governments, property owners, and brokers.

Businesses and site selectors often had to piece together information from multiple sources, making it difficult to compare communities and identify the best fit for expansion. After discovering the capabilities of GIS, Oklahoma Commerce saw an opportunity to simplify that process while giving local EDOs better tools to share information and respond to inquiries.

To address this challenge, Oklahoma Commerce created a centralized resource for exploring available properties, which evolved into LocateOK.

Built on ArcGIS Online, LocateOK serves as Oklahoma’s public-facing website for site selection and business attraction. The agency uses ArcGIS Business Analyst to enrich the platform with demographic, workforce, and market insights. Underlying the platform is GURU, an economic development solution from Esri business partner GIS WebTech that helps Oklahoma Commerce manage property listings, maintain site information, and market communities and investment opportunities across the state.

“Our goal is to help communities compete on a level playing field by making information easier to access and understand,” explained Jon Chiappe, executive director of Community Outreach and Revitalization Enterprise (CORE) at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. “LocateOK allows us to highlight places that might otherwise be overlooked and bring greater attention to the assets, talent, and potential found throughout Oklahoma.”

On average, 400 to 500 monthly visitors search for available sites and buildings across Oklahoma and explore each site's surrounding area using interactive maps. The maps provide insight into local industries, transportation infrastructure, nearby employers, and other characteristics of the community.

Users can explore access to major highways, rail networks, and airports, helping them better understand how communities connect to suppliers, customers, and workforce populations. Community profiles and downloadable reports provide additional context, while maps allow users to view demographic, workforce, and market data alongside available properties. Bringing this information together helps businesses compare locations more efficiently and better understand what each community has to offer.
 

LocateOK has become a valuable resource for local and regional EDOs, property owners, and commercial real estate professionals. With thousands of active listings, including site-ready sites, the platform provides visibility into a diverse inventory of properties for lease or sale across Oklahoma.

Beyond regional benefits, Oklahoma Commerce also uses LocateOK to support business attraction efforts nationwide. At trade shows and industry events in highly competitive markets such as California, New York, Chicago, and Dallas, the agency uses LocateOK to showcase Oklahoma as a destination for growth and investment. With the ability to answer questions in real time and highlight workforce, infrastructure, and community assets, agency staff can demonstrate why businesses should choose Oklahoma.

“Every state is competing for investment,” said Chiappe. “LocateOK helps us stand out by turning data into a compelling story about why companies succeed in Oklahoma.”
 

Between 2023 and 2025, Oklahoma announced 225 new and expanding company projects, representing nearly $28 billion in potential investment. During that time, 53 companies established a new presence in the state, and more than 18,300 projected new jobs were announced. By making location intelligence easier to access and understand, LocateOK helps communities that may not have been on the radar to present their strengths to prospective employers and investors while emphasizing the opportunities available across Oklahoma.

As Oklahoma continues competing for new investment, ArcGIS technologies remain a key part of Oklahoma Commerce's economic development strategy. What began as a way to ensure communities were noticed has evolved into a model for how states can use GIS to elevate the profile of their communities, support informed site selection, and advance long-term economic development goals.