CREJ

Page 2 — Property Management Quarterly — July 2021 www.crej.com Letter from the Editor A s business operations begin to feel normal again and build- ing occupancy creeps back up, now is a good time to assess your properties to see what has been neglected over the past year and examine how the past year’s budget held up to the unexpected. Did improving indoor air quality throw a wrench in the budget, or did fewer occupants cause less wear and tear on the property than in a typical year? This issue of Prop- erty Management Quarterly reminds me that in the world of property manage- ment, it’s always one thing after another. While the term“new normal” is overused, for managers jug- gling to revive old routines with adjustments to address the long-term changes the pandemic brought, it’s pretty appropriate. For example, creating strong tenant relationships and valued customer ser- vice is the backbone of a property man- ager’s job. However, sometimes even the best service can’t keep a struggling tenant in your building. As move-outs continue, especially in the office sector, authors emphasize it’s a good time to refamiliarize yourself with tenant leas- es to gauge and anticipate what costs might be coming down the pipeline with soon-to-be vacant space. Further, demands on construction crews have not let up, so checking in and main- taining your vendor relationships will be important to ensure limited hiccups during a turnover. Before the pandemic, there was a lot of discussion regarding hiring building management and engineer staff.While the unemployment rate still sits far higher than it was pre-pandemic, there are reports across industries of hiring struggles.Training, raises and signing bonuses are becoming common prac- tice for many industries.These were all considerations management teams were exploring pre-COVID-19, accord- ing to managers I spoke with back in 2019. Are managers getting even more creative to fill staffing positions today, or have these challenges relaxed post- pandemic? And finally, we all relied heavily on technology to get us through the pan- demic – but even with more faces back in your buildings, the demands and requirements for a well-functioning, high-tech building won’t recede.This reliance on more automated tech- nologies opens another Pandora’s box that we’ve seen on a national scale: cybersecurity threats. Hackers and ransomware attacks continue to target large and small facilities.The more a building embraces smart features, the more the asset is relying on hackable technology.We’ll dive into this topic in coming issues as we examine how to make sure your networks, and your tenants’ networks, are secure, and make sure there are plans in place for handling a cyber incident – just as there are plans in place for handling other buildingwide incidents. Michelle Z. Askeland maskeland@crej.com 303-623-1148, Ext. 104 Normalcy brings questions Contents Property management news Transitioning back to work in a new environment Jill Muckler A guide to accessibility considerations and codes Matt McMichael Understand landlord liability for criminal acts Steven S. Sessions and Amanda Halstead The best ways to handle a property damage claim Adam May A roundup of pandemic building certifications Amanda Timmons C-PACE funds energy improvement projects Brian McCarter and Tracy Phillips Common questions about commercial solar energy John Shaw The bee’s knees: Corporate beekeeping services David Mathias and Samuel Mathias Roofing 101 terms to make informed decisions Tanya Shepherd Cool building coatings create energy savings Tim Hoeffel Set a new precedent for asset life-safety standards Allie Lewis Ludlum Cultivate tenant experiences for hybrid workers David Abrams Lessons learned for tenant retention and relations Benjamin Yoder Ways to ensure a cleaner experience for guests Marianne Heder Indoor UV tech can mitigate contagion spread Charlie Szoradi 4 6 8 10 12 13 14 15 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25