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State-of-the-art real estate trend & quot;& quot;smart building& quot;& quot; making its way to historic propert

Submitted by: John Warner on Nov 11, 2002 at 6:00 am Tagged with: General Archives Source:

State-of-the-art real estate trend "smart building" making its way to historic
properties of Charleston
Charleston Regional Business Journal, October 2002
By Honor Hawkins

When Allen St. Clair set out to renovate 525 King St., known as the Father and
Son Building, he wanted to merge the old with the new. Built in the 1930s, the
commercial property still had heart-of-pine floors and original brick that St.
Clair, the owner, wanted to preserve. But to make it a preferred space for
potential tenants, St. Clair had to think smart.

State-of-the-art real estate trend ''smart building'' is making its way to some
of the most historic properties in the Lowcountry, offering even the smallest
companies the cache of a prime address plus ''wired'' infrastructure previously
reserved for big businesses and big cities with deep pockets.

Charleston digital corridor director Ernest Andrade has dubbed the local
phenomenon ''smarter building.'' While most new construction, including that in
Charleston, is technologically equipped, the Lowcountry makes it unique by
constructing this technological backbone within some of Charleston's most
historic structures.

Smart buildings are pre-provisioned with advanced cabling and wiring, meaning a
tenant's office can have voice, fax and high speed Internet connections up and
running before the ink on the lease agreement is dry. Prior to the smart
building approach, tenants coordinated high-tech needs independently. With
smart building, the infrastructure is installed during the building or
remodeling phase, often before an occupant has been identified.

Net-based business communications firm Sans Locus moved into its smart office
at 418 King St. less than 24 hours after signing the lease. The combination of
a pre-wired building with historic character made the site the ''best case
scenario'' for the startup, says co-founder Joe Bryan. ''Having the data
connection to the Internet already in place potentially saved weeks of time.''
Bryan appreciates the modern amenities that helped his firm get to work, but
believes clients value the office's more antiquated attributes. ''Even when our
clients and prospects are located outside of the peninsula, they love coming to
our offices for meetings because of the beautiful setting and the appeal of
downtown.''

Even though remodeling an older structure can be more taxing than building from
scratch, pre-provisioning is worth the extra expense, according to Philip
Eckman of The Barefoot Group LLC, a technology consulting and project
management firm. ''Having tenants coordinate their own wiring is like having
tenants install their own sewer systems,'' he says. ''It just doesn't make
sense.''
What does make sense is that upfitting a property for any tenant type benefits
developers, owners, leasing agents and occupants. St. Clair hopes that building
smartly will help him rent easily. ''I wanted the space to be attractive to all
types of businesses, and offering a wired but historic building suits
everything from a tech firm to a law firm to a design studio,'' says St. Clair,
whose interested occupants represent a variety of businesses.

Chris Price, principal of the PrimeSouth Group LLC, says updating older
buildings to compete with newer properties is quickly becoming more of a
necessity than an option. His company—which owns properties throughout the
Lowcountry—including Sans Locus' office, began smart building about four years
ago in response to tenant demands and competitive pressures. ''We realized that,
though this may cost us more initially, smart building in historic properties
is one way we can stay ahead of the competition,'' he says. ''Smart building is a
smart investment.''

Does this investment translate to higher rents? Not necessarily. While the
arrangements are often negotiable, tenants typically pay a fixed monthly rate
for phone, data and Internet services for less than what they would pay a
provider directly, without the hassle and expense of the initial set-up, which
can cost thousands. ''Tenants in smart buildings are able to get better quality
technology at equivalent or less expense,'' adds Price.

Sans Locus' Bryan says that moving into a smart building probably saved the
company ''several hundred—if not thousands—of dollars in setup and service
fees.''
The Charleston digital corridor's Andrade says that applying the principles of
smart building to older properties embodies his organization's marketing
mantra, ''18th century architecture and 21st century technology.'' Delivering on
this theme, says Andrade, is critical to attracting the type of knowledge-based
enterprises Charleston needs to boost its economy. ''The bottom line is that if
we want to compete with the Northeast and West Coast, we have to offer these
types of buildings.''

Bryan agrees that capitalizing on Charleston's historic appeal by equipping it
with digital infrastructure is essential to economic progress, and that the
responsibility lies with owners and developers. ''There will come a day—and the
sooner the better in my opinion—that offering commercial office space without a
digital infrastructure will be just as ludicrous as offering space without
heating and air conditioning.''