For example I am right now sitting in an Arby’s. I’m trying to figure out what business was here before Arby’s? Which would’ve been at least 20 years ago.
Is there a website or someplace that I could easily search this information at, preferably for free.
Edit: the arbys building was built when they moved in. I’m curious what business was there before.
City or county property records should be public and have that info.
There are tools out there that analyze public records in a more usable format (ex. shipping records, elected representative financials)
Might be cool to have that for property records for curiosity and analysis, but I guess that might increase abuse?
Yeah, I’m happy for it to be inconvenient. Just this morning I got a spear-phishing email with my full home address and name trying to trick me into canceling a fake auto-renew subscription.
Four almost-foolproof ways come to mind
- Ask the neighbors.
- Search property records.
- Search business license records.
- Search tax records.
Bonus: Ask the local chamber of commerce.
ETA: Search old phone books. Ask the local librarian.
I would add old phone books and newspaper records at the public library.
The only building i know you can do that to is the old Pizza Hut buildings, they’re just built different
To find the previous businesses at that address, contact the City and ask for business license history at that address. Most cities require a business license for every business that wants to operate in a city.
To find the previous construction activity at that location, contact the City (or County if it’s unincorporated) and ask for Planning and Building permits at that location. Some sort of permit is always needed when something is being built, so there should be records on it.
Typically, City/County websites have a permit record database online under their Building/Planning/Community Development department. You can usually use those to search up permits for an address. To see actual plans, you would need to contact the City.
For business licenses, that information isn’t normally available online but should be public record and can be accessed by contacting the City.
I tried this in my city recently and got a “We don’t keep records that long”.
It’s for permits on a build 11 years ago…
Was pretty disappointed.
Ask random old people on the street.
Depends on if the building was leased. You can see ownership records as public information. If Arbies (or their franchise peeps) owned that property and sold it, it would be viewable. If somebody else owned it and leased to Arby’s… that’s going to be a matter of finding the person and asking them- and they may (almost certainly will) tell you to take a flying leap.
You can look up current property owners by searching county property maps as a place to start. every county I know of has very detailed county maps used by surveyors and such like. just google [your county] property map and you should find it.
in any case, at 20 years, I’d assume that building (if not that property) was always an Arby’s.
Sometimes you can find old arial photographs. That will show if there was a building there before.
