A successful theme and vision for a property is achieved when an owner, asset manager, and property manager can all agree on what the property will become and they each commit the time, staff and resources required to get there. We have found that the most successful engagements have occurred when all parties are working toward a common result that is well articulated and documented.

It is not unusual for us to bring a multi-disciplinary team (leasing, property management, development, architectural, mechanical, electrical and others where necessary) to a meeting with an asset manager and owner in order to get all of the issues covered in a single meeting. It also serves to ensure that the entire team has a clear understanding of how you came to the final vision for the property and cements everyone’s commitment level to the desired result.
Coordinating the effort between leasing, property management, development, architecture, engineering, and contracting is made much simpler with a common vision and goals. Clear instruction and well defined outcomes are critical in complex leasing, construction or redevelopment projects in order to achieve what was originally envisioned.

So don’t just get caught up in the minutia of the property management function, get involved in the big picture and enjoy the process of achieving your common vision.

We have spent the last 2 years changing the way we deal with information flow.  The basis of our philosophy is that documents should not move through cyber space for anyone to see.  We now require users to come to the document in a secure environment.  This simple change in philosophy required a huge mental and physical change in the way we dealt with information flow in the past.  We have centralized all documents that pertain to the properties we manage, we track the people that have accessed the documents and we are in the process of having all users go to a document rather having the document move to the user.  This is a bit more complex than it seems.  We create millions of pages of information per year and they have to be categorised, secured and tracked and then be viewed by different users that have unique needs and security accesses.

Why be concerned?

1. I think that IT policy should extend to all areas of your business in which your information resides.  Most companies probably have a fairly rigid set of internal controls on how information is managed.  But as soon as the information goes outside their firewall there appears to be little or no concern as to the security and integrity of the information.  So, the fact that property managers are the temporary custodians of an owner’s information should not limit the owner’s ability to ensure that it is handled in a manner that is consistent with their internal policies.
2. Under this philosophy there is only one document generated and stored.  A link is then sent that invites someone to visit a secure area in which the document is stored.  This allows us to track who has seen the document, who has changed it and who has uploaded it.
3. By having only one document we significantly reduce our e-storage requirement which is the fastest growing area of IT.

So, take the time to understand what it means to you to never again send or receive an unsecure email with confidential content and still make the timely decisions that are required to manage a building.  I believe that we have overcome this hurdle and we now better align with the governance policies of institutional owners today.

Managing a real estate company through choppy economic times requires us to broaden our sensitivity analysis and consider shocks as routine. In fact, many players have cashed up in the hopes that more shocks to the system will occur that will allow them to pick up bargains and deploy funds. If these shocks take a long time to occur you have to wonder what an asset manager will do with committed cash and no revenue being generated. They will probably relent at some point and have to invest in something or risk losing their investors. This might lead to short term strength in the market.

The distressed debt seminar in particular was indicative of this theme of uncertainty. When the conference was set up, the organizers obviously thought that this would be a timely and relevant topic of discussion. As it turns out, very little time was spent on distressed debt as very few transactions had occurred at the date of the forum. Obviously, many more transitions and opportunities were anticipated and I was certainly in the camp that thought there would be many more distressed properties by now.

The only predictable part of the conference was how effective the conversations are outside the conference doors. That is where you find out where the average real estate person is focused and the direction they are taking their companies. Many are nervous and remain very cautious in their outlook. That is when I knew I was not alone.

We decided to expand our operation outside Ottawa for several reasons:

1. Our size, currently managing over 3.5 million square feet in Ottawa, means we are getting to the point where expansion of our leasing operations will start to run into conflicts if we take on more real estate in certain markets with new owners.  Our property management operations don’t have to worry about these conflicts so much.
2. We developed a communications tool we call Colonnade Central that will allow us to move information across a national platform far more efficiently then we had been able to do before.
3. We have an aggressive style of management that builds value in the real estate of our clients and appears to be different enough that we are garnering interest from other markets.

The key to our success and that of our clients is our ability to communicate and move information internally and externally in a very efficient, accurate, and secure manner.  We also have the people, platform and commitment to accomplish this and we look forward to getting others excited about our expansion.