Cisco Connected Real Estate Gives Adgar the Edge over Commercial Property Rivals Worldwide
May 29, 2007
By Jason Deign, News@cisco
It is no ordinary day at the office when you step into Adgar Tower. The 21-storey block in Petah Tikvah, seven miles east of Tel Aviv, uses technology from Cisco Systems® to provide tenants with some of the most advanced buildings services in the world.
Before they leave for home, for instance, Adgar Tower workers can check how the traffic is looking without leaving their seat, by checking a video stream from cameras on the top of the building on their screen.
And in the near future, once Cisco content networking equipment is linked to entry control systems, Adgar hopes that even the lifts will be able to display personalized welcome messages for important guests.
The Tower is the flagship for Tel Aviv stock exchange-listed Adgar Investments & Development, the real estate division of leading Israeli finance and insurance group Zur Shamir.
Adgar Tower's leading technology is based on Cisco Connected Real Estate, an IP-based framework that merges information, communication and building technologies into one enabling infrastructure.
Adgar management's decision to use IP-based services is the result of a very conscious decision intended to provide added value to tenants.
Chief executive Roy Gadish says: "Our strategy was to differentiate this building and all our assets in an already saturated market. One of the methods to achieve this goal was the creation of a unique communications network that would connect Adgar Tower with all our buildings."
As part of the strategy, Adgar took the unusual step, for a property company, of recruiting a chief technology officer, Eyal Litwin, to its management team in 2002.
Eyal masterminded the creation of a building-wide IP network which is as much a part of the Tower's service offering as emergency generators or cleaners.
Using the network for a number of different building functions, from video surveillance to access control, helps Adgar reduce its costs and simplify management of the Tower. But the real benefit of the IP infrastructure is in helping to market the office space to prospective tenants.
In the Israel property market, office buildings average about 60 percent sold occupancy prior to opening, which means much of the landlord's investment is not realized until some time after the building is open for business.
Adgar hoped to push this level up to 75 percent with a novel marketing strategy that aimed to play up the high-tech features of the building. "We marketed it like a technology company," says Litwin, "promoting it on Google, filming a video and creating a demo room."
In the event, demand for space in Adgar Tower exceeded even the owner's highest expectations. On opening, every single square foot of available space had been leased, an unprecedented achievement.
"Local property brokers accept that other buildings cannot compete with Adgar Tower," says Litwin. "Location and price used to be the two major elements to consider when leading office space, but now we have added a third factor: technology."
For Adgar, IT infrastructure has thus ceased to be seen as a building overhead and is instead viewed as a highly successful marketing investment, with the extra cost of the network paying for itself through increased occupancy.
"We treat it like a lobby refurbishment," Litwin says. "I can invest USD$100,000 in Wi-Fi and I know for sure my tenants will appreciate it. If the location fits, then the technology will help sell the space. We are an exceptional landlord because we realize a building is more than concrete."
Adgar has applied this approach to other buildings in its global portfolio, with similar results. In Canada, for example, the company fitted out three buildings with Wi-Fi and had them all fully occupied within a year.
"We invest a few percent of the building cost in network equipment and have better occupancy and less vacancy time," notes Litwin. "If a tenant leaves and a new one arrives, you do not have to put in a new IT installation… just refurbish the space."
Jason Deign is a freelance journalist located in Barcelona, Spain.
