How Property Managers Can Meet The Increasing Demand For Tech-Ready Buildings

Building Connectivity, Technology Documentation and the Rise of Tenant Expectations

In almost every market across the world, modern tenants seeking new office space are looking for suites in buildings that prioritize technology services as a core offering.

Tenants place a high value on smart building technologies and are looking for buildings with multiple service providers that offer reliable connectivity maintenance and security programs.

According to National Real Estate Investor, “a building’s internet connectivity is second only to location in importance to tenants when seeking office space and […] tenants would sign a longer lease if a building has superior technology or sign a lease more quickly if assured the building’s connectivity meets their business requirement.”

Marketing Your Building Connectivity Profile

As the competition heats up for retaining and attracting high-profile tenants, understanding their requirements, and exceeding them, can be challenging. Property managers need to provide access to accurate, detailed, and up-to-date information about their building’s connectivity capabilities to entice potential tenants to sign leases and encourage current tenants to stay on for longer terms.

Earlier this year, Headquarters Optimized reported, “Landlords use technological advancements to differentiate their office buildings and promote themselves as a tech-forward destination for tenants – particularly TAMI tenants (technology, advertising, media and information technology companies). High-rated broadband connectivity and tenant engagement software have become huge recruiting tools.”

Marketing materials that highlight the technology and communications infrastructure of your building can be used as powerful collateral in your newsletters, on your website, and in your leasing literature.

The most important connectivity items to include in your building technology profiles are:

  • the number of service providers available
  • the services they offer
  • the available capacity in your building’s riser (which is a good measurement for future expansion of services.)

Other factors to showcase are:

  • How many points of entry are available (multiple points of entry mean higher redundancy)
  • How many riser locations are in the building (multiple risers mean higher redundancy)
  • Secured riser spaces
  • Available building technologies (Building Wi-Fi, DAS, etc.)
  • Available cabling types
  • Building readiness documentation (transparency means tenants understand the availability of new ISPs and services)
  • Emergency maintenance and repair
  • Single point of contact for technology needs

How Do Property Managers Ensure Their Building Meets Their Tenant’s Connectivity Requirements?

In today’s market, building audits and connectivity certifications have become a popular solution among property management as an easy means of marketing their building’s technology profile.

Unfortunately, while these solutions do provide management with good insight into the technology footprint of their buildings, they also leave them facing costly re-certification fees and building audits just a few years down the road.

Solutions that depend on technology snapshots of a building’s infrastructure can quickly become obsolete when ongoing work and Move/Add/Changes go undocumented. To make matters worse, most connectivity certifications are only valid for specific periods of time.

The easiest way to maximize a building’s technology profile is to ensure that all building infrastructure documentation is current, the infrastructure is maintained to codes and standards, and that tenants have a reliable single point of contact for all their telecommunications needs.

Tech-Ready Buildings: Maintaining Marketable Documentation on Your Building’s Infrastructure

As technology advances continue in today’s fast-paced markets, always be prepared. Let your marketing reflect your building is ready to exceed expectations by providing immediate access to accurate documentation of your building’s current technology profile.

In other words, the ongoing maintenance of the building’s infrastructure is more important than the building survey itself. Make sure you plan to actively maintain your documentation!

Tenants rely on their property managers and brokers to provide detailed information about the building’s available services and service providers, so if your staff is not able to fully document, and consistently update, your building’s telecommunications infrastructure, consider partnering with a riser management company with an established reputation that offers comprehensive documentation maintenance as one of its core services.

In order to ensure the strong marketability of your building’s connectivity, whether you and your property management staff opt to keep the maintenance of the telecommunications infrastructure in-house or work with a riser management company, it is critical that all of the building’s telecommunications infrastructure is maintained, and the documentation is actively updated.

Contact Us Today

Find Out How We Can Make Your Building A Tech-Ready Building

More From Our Resource Library

Understanding Connectivity YouTube Thumbnail
Ensure your buildings are providing your tenants with the most reliable services available today.
Avoid getting burned meeting Ethernet Service Provider Requirements from new carriers.
Ensure you have the best chance of securing Platinum, Gold or Silver WiredScore ratings.