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In the United States is there an easy way to find out what business occupied space before the current business?
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this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Recent history would be reflected in Google Street View, but that only goes back to maybe 2011 and only for some parts of the USA.
Going further back, you can try property ownership records, or even just searching for the address online, setting the time window to before the current business came to be.
Important caveat that many (most?) businesses lease their space so there's a good chance the legal owner is just something like "123 Main Street Partners, LP" (often literally just the actual street address as the substantive part of the name), which won't tell you anything about what business was there. The lessee's name, however, is likely to be on some permits, so that would be another approach if the registered owner ends up a dead end.
This is a good point. Franchises are less likely to have a recognizable corporate name, if they even own the property at all. But for more established companies or long-time small businesses, the owner entity's name might be a good giveaway as to what they did.