High-tech buildings attract high-profile tenants.

As we approach the 21st century, building managers are searching for new, cost-efficient ways to upgrade their older buildings to meet tenant needs. With tenants specifically demanding technology amenities as a component of their lease negotiations, savvy building managers are paying close attention to their property's infrastructure. By upgrading and repositioning buildings as technology-friendly, modern facilities that offer state-of-the-art technologies and telecommunications systems, building managers can reap the rewards of a successful, modern Class-A facility.

CS Technology (CST), specializing in assisting the real estate community through telecommunications and technology consulting and engineering services, has recently worked with building managers in some of the city's most significant real estate transactions. Working directly with prospective tenants and managers to meet both parties' technology needs, CST optimizes a property's revenue potential by recommending upgrades and enhancements to the facility's telecommunications infrastructure.

Most recently, CS Technology was integral in repositioning 55 Water Street to compete with new facilities in the Downtown market, transforming it into a Class A office facility. CST established guidelines for the design of the building's telecommunications services, including communications requirements, carrier service entrance points, and communication riser locations and specifications.

One of CST's main goals at 55 Water Street was to provide tenants with diverse and redundant communications capabilities in order to protect the telecommunications systems by eliminating a single point of failure. To achieve this, an interconnection pathway was established between two Telco fiber terminating distribution frames which allowed services to be distributed from either entrance point to locations throughout the building. CST also recommended that 55 Water Street expand the riser pathway for microwave service from the rooftop. Expanding this riser allowed the microwave service to support any office floor in the entire building from a centralized location. Buildings can enhance communications reliability by providing microwave capability, which acts as a secondary communications link to the traditional terrestrial circuits. The existing IDF (telephone rooms) on each floor supplied the service while increasing the availability of wide-area communications.

In general, building managers can provide a host of services to attract tenants with advanced telecommunications needs. Specifically, you can greatly enhance the grade of a building by offering alternate access carriers, Internet access services, highspeed data capabilities, cable and satellite telecommunications services, Local Area Network (LAN) access, roof access for microwave and satellite services, and microcell or wireless LAN capability. Building managers can even offer video-teleconferencing centers that smaller tenants might not be capable of providing on their own, or offer broadcast capabilities or color graphics facilities as an extra amenity.

Most importantly, a technologically savvy manager will provide tenants with a redundant infrastructure that protects against systems or service failure such as uninterrupted power supplies and generators.

Law firms, accounting firms, insurance companies and countless others have followed the investment community's lead in demanding facilities with a state-of-the-art technology infrastructure. In today's market, tenants are beginning to expect a building to offer such features. Upgrading a facility's infrastructure is critical when successfully marketing a renovated property. As the total tenant mix becomes increasingly dependent on telecommunications technology, more property managers will be forced to provide a higher level of services and reliability.