iBuilding's building-centric, workflow-based applications are designed to help real estate owners manage buildings, projects and processes more efficiently, says chief strategy officer Christopher Hartung. According to Hartung, most real estate-related applications try to solve transactional problems, and then work their way back to the asset. That, he says, is backwards.
"It's analogous to General Motors creating a just-in-time supply delivery network without first determining what was going on at the manufacturing plant."
"Let's take the simple act of fixing a ceiling tile," he says. "It's actually a multi-faceted transaction that takes a number of people employed by different parties, spans many systems and is primarily paper based. By delivering an on-line platform through which all these parties can manage and control the process and then link into billing, accounting and other systems, we deliver efficiencies to the process and reduce costs."
The iBuilding system was designed to work with other property management operating systems and can be implemented in phases or "scaled."
"Interoperability is important in that just as we bring all participants into the process, we are looking to link into service providers so that a building manager can manage the breadth of his/her daily activities through the iBuilding Operating System™. What's important regarding value scaling is that as one deploys technology to the average person, there are wide gaps in the people's understanding of technology and their comfort in using it. Therefore, we need a system that is very modular in design and can "scale" functionality to the needs of our users."
Egging Them On
Bringing efficiency to building operations is what EggSystems technology provides building owners and tenants.
"We're all about real-time building intelligence," says Terry Diaferio, chief marketing officer. "We bring in a portal page where the building is the center of the universe, but the applications on that page make it easy for tenants to access building services online."
EggSystems' Connected Workplace Communities initiative brings tenants, property managers, facility operations, outside providers and building systems closer together through technology. And, its Device Networking initiative re-engineers the means in which real-time data reaches service technicians and clients alike. Its technological applications create an "operating system" within the building, connecting devices and systems and building users into a single accessible, navigable browser which in turn allows users to monitor, control, maintain and track any building system from a single browser. "By automating, we relieve people from key-stroking information," says Diaferio.
Greater Exposure
Leasing or selling property can be a time consuming and complicated process. But CenterPoint Properties Trust turned to PropertyFirst.Com (recently merged with LoopNet) to simplify the process.
"We're finding it helps us not only speed up the deal making process because we don't have to send brochures back and forth, but it's also exposing our property to a broader market," says Scott Zimmerman, chief information office. "PropertyFirst was pretty exceptional when it came to getting us up and online."
CenterPoint will use PropertyFirst's Private Label System in conjunction with its own web site to market its portfolio of approximately 31 million square feet.
"I think we list online for a handful of reasons," says Zimmerman. "The first is to facilitate the deal making processing for everybody, i.e., brokers, our guys and tenants themselves. We find that more and more they go to this web site." PropertyFirst's all-inclusive platform was an important part of CenterPoint's selection.
"We were very cautious that we didn't isolate the brokerage community. Some of the other products it seemed were trying to get rid of brokers. We wanted to make sure the site we selected wasn't trying to get rid of the brokerage process, but help it."
Initially, CenterPoint was listing just its property for the members of the investment community who like to view the REIT's assets. That was too pricey. After building a centralized system where all building data are received and can be transferred, CenterPoint can now send data to PropertyFirst for listing.
"We were actually able to leverage our investment in the system at PropertyFirst. Plus it's tied directly to our own leasing system that we have to use to track our own transactions. I wouldn't say I've seen an entire deal get done, but, our managers are telling me they're getting more calls."
SewerNet?
It travels the sewers, but it's no rat. CityNet Communications, Inc.'s Sewer-Access Module, otherwise known as S.A.M., is a six-inch wide, 141-pound robot that travels through city sewer lines to prepare them for fiber optic cable installation, closing the last-mile between building and broadband service providers.
"For building owners we're like a utility that enables them to utilize the full potential of the building," says Bob Berger, president. At no charge to building owners, CityNet will run fiber-optic through sewers into a building's basement where it terminates on a patch-panel that hangs on a wall, and taking no leasable space.
"We're an enabler for all of them," says Berger of the providers, owners and tenants. How it works: First CityNet acquires a sewer license and access agreement from the municipality it intends to cable. Once that's received the firm negotiates a building connection agreement with the property owner. The cable is ultimately leased to a service provider who is looking for last-mile fibers into buildings. From there broadband service providers can connect and provide their services to tenants. It's a win-win situation. Municipalities share in the revenue, enjoy economic development benefits and because S.A.M. runs through sewer lines, roads are not torn up creating traffic nightmares. Service providers get that last-mile hook-up, and building owners and tenants receive broadband services.
"The reason we're being welcomed so warmly by commercial real estate is that we help them unlock the value of their building," says Berger. "We're a neutral utility that enables the building owner to maximize this opportunity from all the carriers that will serve the building."
Watch S.A.M. go. Step 1. S.A.M. maps the city's sewer system utilizing a digital camera. Step 2. S.A.M. positions stainless steel alloy rings flush against the sewer pipe walls. Step 3. S.A.M. secures stainless steel alloy conduit/tubes to the rings. Step 4. Fiber optic cable is threaded through the conduit into the building.
"We take our little robot and run it up the lateral which is a pipe that leads into a building and will do it one of two ways," he says.
In some cases, the robot will go up to the lateral into the building and terminate within 50 feet of where CityNet enters the building. Or, if necessary, CityNet installs a mini-manhole and runs a pipe from the lateral into the building, all below ground. Either way, the building is converted from a copper interface to the more efficient fiber-optic interface.
