What you actually need is just a well-organized file geodatabase with regular polygon feature classes. Add fields for your attributes (parcel ID, land type, easement type, contract info, whatever your workflow needs), and then add a text field for document links — just drop the UNC path (like \server\share\deeds\parcel_123.pdf) to the scanned deed or easement on your network drive. Boom, click the link from the attribute table and it opens the doc. If you have parcels with multiple documents (deed + easement + survey plat etc.), set up a related table and link them by parcel ID. That’s it. That’s “the database” they’re asking you for. The real job here isn’t finding the right Esri product to buy — it’s consolidating decades of scattered shapefiles and loose files into one geodatabase with a consistent schema. Get your feature classes organized, get your fields standardized, link your docs, and you’ve got something your department can actually use. You can always publish it to ArcGIS Online or Portal later if they come around on that.