In the fast-moving world of business development, providing easy access to information is key. In Brentwood, that means firms looking for information about locating in the city won’t even need to get out of their car.

“Brentwood is the first city in the Bay Area to have an economic development Web site designed for hand-held devices,” said Economic Development and Planning Director Alex Greenwood. “The nature of the real estate business is that a lot of brokers and business representatives work in the field. This will allow them to access information from their hand-held devices.”

The site, www.businessinbrentwood.com, was launched this month, Greenwood told the City Council Tuesday. One of the brightest features will be a site locater, which will allow prospective businesses to search for vacant properties by size, type of planned use, whether the property is for sale or lease, and other important criteria. Available sites in Brentwood that match a business’s needs is then generated and displayed on a map of the city, along with owner or real-estate-agent contact information for the property.

“This is exactly what we wanted,” Councilman Bob Brockman told Greenwood as the remaining council members nodded in agreement.

The site is packed with useful information, including demographics, traffic counts, business assistance programs offered by the city, information on permits and licenses, and city planning documents, to name a few.

“The end result is beyond what I’d hoped for,” said Councilman Joel Bryant.

In addition to the new website, a comprehensive marketing plan is being developed to spell out the city’s key selling points. They include proximity to the Bay Area, the Delta, the Tri-Valley area and the Central Valley, as well as the city’s fiscal strength, educated and available workforce, abundant housing, family-friendly community and business-friendly government.

In addition to the website, the outreach will include newspaper articles, radio and TV stories plus magazine articles. An example, said Greenwood, is the fact that the current work to improve the downtown has landed the city on the cover of the San Francisco Business Times for the first time. More exposure through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are also possibilities.

Greenwood also hopes to build a continual presence for the city at trade shows and through broker tours in order to let people know about Brentwood.

“One of the difficulties in helping people find out how special Brentwood is, is that we’re not even on their radar screen,” Greenwood said.