With Smart Building Technology, a Facilities Manager can log in remotely to flip the switch on more than 500 lights. In toilets throughout a 7-acre development, the toilet paper, paper towels and hand-soap dispensers can automatically tell the Facilities Manager when a dispenser is empty. Toilets can even send signals when they’re blocked. And you do tend to find that the toilets are one of the top complaints in commercial buildings, while most other tenant gripes center on heating and cooling systems, which can all be built into the smart network. Why would you want to create more problems for yourself when a Smart Building can solve them for you?

You can offer telephone, data, Internet, security and music services through a single fiber-optic network. The Facilities Manager can monitor heating, cooling, lighting, and digital signage through that same network, which currently links all retail tenants, outdoor spaces and property management offices. However, its estimated that less than 10% of new and existing commercial buildings actually contain intelligent smart building technology. Most active in the intelligent Smart Building Technology field are data centers, hospitals and universities.  A key driver of intelligent technology in the commercial real estate sector is escalating energy costs. If an intelligent lighting and energy management system is integrated into a building’s overall operating network, the owner can reap energy savings of 30% to 45% vs. a stand-alone lighting and energy management systems. A full-fledged intelligent technology system can deliver bottom-line rewards its as simple as that.

One reason Smart Buildings have yet to make it to the mainstream is that many commercial property developers in the UK have a bad habit of promoting a building’s short-term profitability rather than its long-term operating costs (although to fair they are slowly coming around to our way of thinking). They don’t usually worry to much about the buildings operating costs five years down the line because they’re not going to own it. If tenants demanded intelligent Smart Building Technology, then the developers have to deliver. But do the The tenants really understand it, do they give it much credence? As an industry I don’t think we have done enough in terms of teaching building developers, owners and designers about the value of intelligent Smart Building Technology. However, despite this slow adoption, we’ve got to be optimistic about the future of intelligent Smart Building Technology as we’ve started seeing some real growth in the last few years!