Under the Radar: Meet Scot Sellers

ARCHSTONE-SMITH

FRESH BREW

A little bit of java recharges the business center for the 21st century.No doubt about it—today’s apartment renters live in a mobile society. Blackberries, cell phones, and laptops provide many with the opportunity to work and network from home. And Gen Y? If they can’t move throughout a multifamily complex and plug and play at the same time, their response to a lease overture is likely “whatever.” During the past decade, the answer for most developers to this itinerant professionalism has been the business center: an alcove off of the clubhouse with a couple of PCs and utilitarian finishes, which felt like, well, an office.

Like other multifamily developers, Englewood, Colo.-based Archstone-Smith has discovered that’s not quite what residents in core high-barrier markets want. Their solution: pull the technology into the clubhouse, add mood lighting, pump up the WiFi, and brew some lattes. In the resulting Starbucksesque environment—dubbed a “click café”—Archstone-Smith residents can grab a paper, get a caffeine fix, check email, and relax 24/7 in a chic atmosphere.

“At most of our communities, we’re putting in click cafés to provide a social networking area to recreate a sense of community where people will want to live with us for years and years to come,” says Jack Callison, Archstone-Smith’s president of U.S. operations. “We’re trying to create a sense of environment, trying to create what [Archstone-Smith chief development officer] Al Neely calls the ‘there, there.’”

In fact, the cafés have been a triple shot of success, Neely says, enabling residents to fully leverage tech amenities that sat dormant in business centers and reinvigorating the social atmosphere of the clubhouse. This is creating a greater brand identity for the Archstone-Smith apartment product. “People like to be social; they don’t want to feel isolated in their amenities,” Neely says. “So we’ve made a point to use a lot of glass, open up the cafés visually to any courtyards or fitness centers or pools, and make the space welcoming. It has become the heart and the soul of our communities.”

That’s an achievement that any Archstone-Smith resident should be able to warm up to, fresh out of the pot.