Multifamily properties are including mixed-use aspects such as retail and office space to serve residents looking for a live–work–play lifestyle. Doing so can improve a property’s net operating income while providing a natural ecosystem of business, work, and living spaces that supports itself.
But for multifamily operators, managing mixed-use also means serving multiple needs for your residents on both the residential and commercial sides. Approaching each with a focused plan for access control of the property—and, eventually, disposition of the asset—is key to monetizing the multiple opportunities that come with mixed-use.
For Jeff Berta, senior director of real estate development at Chicago-based Structured Development, taking the mixed-use approach helped him weather the Great Recession. In 2005, Chicago’s NEWCITY development in Lincoln Park incorporated 500 condominiums. But by 2009, the business environment for building condos had hit a wall, so Structured scaled back to 199 residential apartments instead, while increasing the retail and office components of the property. Doing so helped cater to the changing financing climate of the times.
But it also meant that Berta and Structured had to think about the end use of the property, years before any residents would take up occupancy there. “When you develop mixed-use, even when you’re just envisioning the project, you need to know what your overall plan is for the management and disposition of that asset, because all of your design decisions will cater to that main objective,” Berta says.
So while access to the 199 residences is controlled by a single electronic access-control system that’s integrated into the residential parking garage, the platform is separate from the office and retail components of the development, each of which has its own, dedicated system. That way, should a buyer come in looking to purchase just the residential or office aspects of the development, he or she could do so easily.
Ann Matheis, marketing leader, multifamily, at Allegion, stresses the importance of thinking ahead. “You want to work with the designer early in the process, and make sure you understand all the different openings each resident will need access to, and the parts you want to control electronically,” she says.
Vice President of property management at Castle Lanterra Properties, Jim Brady, took a similar approach. For instance, residents of the community’s 369 apartments also have their own, dedicated access-control system that’s independent of the systems for the two restaurants at the property.
But in the cowork office suites, Brady chose to use the same platform and system to grant access to—and charge—residents who want to use the space.
“The benefit is, you can say who’s supposed to be where and when. You can’t do that with a hard key,” Brady says.
And yet, given the open architecture of Allegion’s ENGAGE Technology Solutions, it’s also possible to build a single, unified solution and parse it down the road.
The approaches you take to access control in a mixed-use property can vary. But having a plan from the beginning that can grow and change with how the property is used over time means you’ll always have access to profits.
For more, visit us.allegion.com/multifamily .