Sanborn maps are superb sources of information when building an inventory of brownfields. EDR has a new
Sanborn Direct product. It essentially allows you to purchase all of the Sanborn maps for an entire city and then view them instantly. It was initially set up to service municipal clients (the City of Houston, TX was the first client), who wanted to use grant money to create inventories of potential brownfield sites.
I think in the future it will become more useful for the Phase I side of things, but for right now the pricing ($10 per map, plus an approximately $1,000 construction fee – Houston spent $100,000), will likely limit its usefulness to completing brownfield inventories once grants or other funds have been obtained by municipalities. You may want to budget this into some grant applications, if there is a lot of Sanborn coverage. For instance, Meridian, MS has 343 total Sanborn maps, so it would cost about $4,430 to purchase Sanborn direct for them. This may be worth it to the city once a grant is awarded to make their inventory process much easier and thorough.
Here's a
demo and
2-min tutorial.
EDR SanbornDirect is a unique online interface which provides direct access to the largest and most comprehensive collection of Sanborn fire insurance maps. Maps showing building configurations in different years in your community can be viewed quickly on a single screen, along with base maps showing a street map, satellite photo, or a hybrid map combining the street map and satellite views.
