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Award-Winning and ‘Technically Perfect,’ A Revolutionary Building That Has It All

phpr31ic2amRecipient of the prestigious Building Office Management Owner’s Toby Award for outstanding building of the year, the KBS-owned Spear Street office building in San Francisco managed by Cushman and Wakefield provides tenants with everything they need to work smarter and more effectively, featuring amenities such as world class video conferencing and touchscreen display-powered conference rooms.

Challenge

KBS is great at spotting potential. This multi-billion-dollar private equity real estate company has built a global business by, among other activities, identifying older buildings with underlying structure in prime urban locations and renovating them to appeal to discriminating professional tenants.  201 Spear Street in San Francisco is a perfect example. It offers a premium location with waterfront views and access to exceptional restaurants, hotels and transit facilities. Capitalizing on its location in a technology hub, KBS also targeted the building as showcase facility for its new national conference room program. Commercial building data indicates that high-end collaboration technology and meeting spaces are increasingly important to tenants and significant differentiators for building properties. KBS enlisted solutions provider infoRev MEDIA to design and deploy traditional and videoconference room technology that would both serve and inspire business performance.

Engaged early in the design phase, infoRev MEDIA President David Liu guided the technology selection, advising the architects on how tenants would interact with technology and, in turn, how the technology would affect the space design. He knew this extraordinary building would require equally impressive technology. Touch-capable display screens were considered a critical element of both the lobby and conference room designs. The display technology needed to be attractive, yet extremely robust and stable. It also needed to be simple enough for use by novice and occasional users, and yet powerful enough to support more sophisticated collaboration and video conferencing requirements.

Solution

phpq8v6g2amAfter investigating different display and digital signage technology, Liu chose the InFocus Mondopad for the Spear Street lobby and conference room facilities. “Mondopad offers an extremely flexible, all-in one-solution. It can be used as a Windows PC, to display a TV channel, to hold team meetings via video conferencing, serve as a white board – nearly anything a tenant would require for communication and collaboration,” said Liu.  Flexible and standards-based, Mondopad supports both SIP and PC-based video conferencing within a single interface as well as commonly used video conferencing systems such as Lync, Zoom and Skype for Business. “We wanted to support tenants with systems they were already familiar with – or make it easy for them to get started.”

In keeping with the building’s focus, Liu’s team focused on creating an AV system that is sophisticated, easy to use and elegantly integrated. The team installed an 80” Mondopad in the lounge and 70” Mondopads in the conference rooms. Barco Click Share units were integrated for wireless connectivity supporting device casting using the building’s dedicated Wi-Fi.  The Mondopads are recessed into the wall for an elegant seamless design, but attached to a scissor mount so they can be easily accessed as necessary. “The Mondopads were extremely easy to install. The system comes well integrated right out of the box,” said Liu.

Results

phptks5qfamWhile the Toby award speaks for itself, KBS also reports that the post-renovation building is fully occupied and still fielding inquiries. The lobby and conference rooms are beautiful and effectively showcase what’s possible for a truly state-of-the-art facility.  Liu added that trouble-free technology is extremely important to building managers. Mondopad gets great tenant feedback from building managers, Cushman and Wakefield, who in turn report this success to KBS.

Tenants can use the shared conference facilities on an ad hoc basis or reserve time through a mobile application provided by KBS. Video conferencing connecting through the Mondopads accommodates two to 100 people, enabling tenants to connect other KBS building conference rooms, or to other tenant office locations. And, an IT team is available to assist as necessary.

KBS buildings are establishing a higher standard, attracting tenants who appreciate the differences and designed-in technology focus of these buildings.

At a glance:

Easy to deploy, easy-to-use solution reduces cost and overhead for building managers

Standards-based technology integrates with popular communication formats to ensure future-proof use

All-in-one solutions provide extraordinary use flexibility at affordable cost

Elegant design is suitable for a myriad of application, including lobby and meeting room display

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