High-speed communications a necessity at top buildings.

Landlords today are finding that providing high-speed telecommunications capabilities to their tenants is becoming a necessity. People demand that the fastest, most reliable high-speed communications services be available in both their home and at their businesses. And meeting these demands -- and retaining tenants -- is a top concern for building owners and developers.

The requirements of communications technology have become a fundamental aspect of new building design and construction, and a key concern as well during renovation. Owners and developers are focusing increasingly on the particular technology needs of their tenants (whether commercial or residential) and so, more than ever, wiring demands now must be taken into consideration.

What exactly can a building owner or developer do to provide tenants with access to today's essential communications services?

Let me give an example of some of the decisions that faced us, as owner's representatives, during the conversion of the Greenwich, at 65 West 13th Street, a 250,000-square-foot warehouse/office facility that we transformed into a luxury apartment building.

In choosing a company to wire the building, we looked at several options. Ultimately, we selected the most cost-effective company that offered high-speed Internet wiring, integrated voice service, and cable television via digital broadcast satellite.

The wiring particulars were as follows: a T-1 line was brought to the building by Verizon. From there, the service provider connected proprietary software to the building's PBX in an existing basement telecom room. A common riser then brought service to a telecom closet located on each of the building's floors. From the telecom closet, each apartment has a separate run of 1 1/2-inch dedicated conduit, done for security purposes, to ensure private lines.

The conduits contain category-five data cable terminating at a central panel in each tenant's apartment. From this panel, the cable was assembled in a star configuration, as opposed to being assembled in a loop, to allow for efficient high-speed Internet and voice services.

Of course, any tenant in the building can choose not to receive Internet, phone and cable services from the company we had wire the building. All a tenant would need to do is pay for the data wiring that was installed and sign up with another company to provide these services, which would require only a few alterations to the existing wiring.

This is only one example of how a builder, owner or property manager can choose to wire a facility. But with technology constantly changing, in order to remain competitive in today's real estate market, it's important that owners, managers and builders make premier communications technology available to all tenants.

At Levien & Company, we've provided a range of project management, consulting, and advisory services to real estate owners, investors and tenants. And we've seen firsthand the impact of technology demands on a building's marketability.