Category: Building Operations
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Going the Distance With Risk Management
There is a scene in the movie Field of Dreams that resonated with me. The voice that originally convinces Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) to turn his cornfield into a baseball field, now instructs him to “Go the distance.” Ray was feeling somewhat pleased with himself at this point in the movie. He’d just built the…
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Top Work Order Software Features in 2021
As commercial tenant expectations rise, they have little patience for buildings with equipment problems. Tenants expect key building systems and equipment to always be in good working order, and they want to be kept informed if things go wrong. The best way to meet these expectations is by using work order software. Now, even the…
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Think There Are No Secrets to Certificates of Insurance? Here’s a Few
You request a Certificate of Insurance for business from your tenants and your vendors. You look quizzically at them when they arrive on your desk. Your boss asks you to make sure that they are current and valid. You file them away and hope you remember to ask for them next year when they renew.…
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What’s Your Strategy for Getting Employees Back in the Office?
When planning your return to office after COVID, remember: no one likes being told what to do. Even when the person doing the telling has the right to do so. And forcing someone to do something, even when they may be predisposed to do it, often breeds discontent—and even backlash. This is particularly so when…
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The Forgotten Secret to Improving Building Engineers’ Happiness
Building engineers are the unsung heroes of property management teams. They are the gears in the machine driving your tenant service delivery. But too often property teams treat them as an afterthought. When a problem arises for a tenant, an engineer is often one of the first faces they see to help solve it. So…
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Understand BOMA Measurement for Retail, Industrial, & Mixed-Use Properties to Maximize Revenue
Mastering a new Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) measurement standard doesn’t exactly make for light beach reading. But failing to measure commercial buildings accurately can potentially cost you millions of dollars in untapped leasing revenue. Exhibit A: Real estate investment, development, and management conglomerate the Feil Organization uncovered an additional $11.7 million in additional…
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Understand BOMA Measurement for Offices to Maximize Your RSF
If you’re a property manager or owner and looking for ways to increase revenue, don’t sleep on accurate space measurement. Whenever the Building Owners and Managers Association of North America updates its BOMA measurement standards, this typically has significant implications for maximizing property revenue. Accurately measuring spaces to reflect current market conditions and measurement standards…
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Want Better Responses from Your Vendor RFP?
RFPs—can’t live with ‘em can’t live without ‘em. You need to send requests for proposals (RFPs) to keep your property in top condition and appealing to tenants. But you know the drill: it can take hours writing each vendor RFP, chasing down responses, and making follow-up calls, only to end up with lackluster responses. Or no…
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Attract and Retain Tenants With Green Building Certification
Commercial real estate tenants have more options right now, including the option to forgo offices altogether in favor of work from home. Consequently, property teams are looking for creative ways to gain leasing advantages, such as joining green building certification programs. A few decades ago, green construction was a niche market, mainly for high-end homeowners.…
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Measure the ROI of Green Property Management
The commercial real estate (CRE) industry’s interest in sustainability has surged in recent years. As targets for net-zero emissions get closer and political forces shift, green property management has gone from a “nice-to-have” to a huge competitive differentiator. However, retrofitting existing buildings with green features and adopting new environmentally conscious protocols isn’t necessarily cheap. If…