22 California Buildings News • Q3 2020
Association News
BOMA Annual Event Gave Useful Reopening Advice Virtual Event Featured Sessions on Dealing With the Pandemic Out of respect for its members’ health, the commercial buildings industry’s leading annual conference went online this year, and it produced experts from many fields who shared insights into how buildings can be made safer and more efficiently operated during the pandemic. The conference’s companion expo also gave vendors opportunities to present solutions and interact easily with customers and prospects. Addressing an event called “The Reboot,” the Building Owners and Managers Association International chair, Scott Jones of San Francisco, said, “Our personal and professional lives have been turned around,” but added optimistically, “We’re pivoting.” BOMA President Henry Chamberlain opened the conference by illustrating ways that buildings are reopening safely and making an appeal to Congress to Scott Jones welcomed attendees to the provide legal liability protections for landlords and companies who invite tenants conference's virtual awards ceremony. back into their buildings. He said throughout the world building managers are posting wayfinding signage, limiting elevator ridership, providing extensive design and operational guidance, sharing resources and working with vendors to meet public health challenges. Chamberlain forecast buildings with increased sensors, touchless technology, reconfigured spaces giving tenants six-foot distances in work areas, hallways and conference rooms, healthy ventilation, biophilic design, plexiglass, deeper cleaning, robots and accommodations for biking to work. And he cited studies that say the overwhelming majority of workers want to spend all or some of their time in workplaces.
Takeways from the Virtual Conference
w Tenants are now focusing
more on the healthcare benefits of buildings than their amenities...“from mechanical filtration to touchless interaction...to surfaces that are antimicrobial,” said Gensler’s Sheryl Schulze, principal, global lead for office building repositioning and landlord services. Noting that only 12% of those surveyed by Gensler said they don’t want to return to the office, she explained, “We’re social creatures. We thrive on connectivity,” and technology, she added, “doesn’t replace being in the same place with a colleague, a friend that you have made at the office.” w Cushman and Wakefield’s President for Asset Services Marla Maloney said tenants are “reacting negatively” to density. “I’m pleased to have a private office. I don’t have to wear a mask (there).” “Our tenants are really going to question this open environment” that had been so fashionable before the pandemic, she said. “One of the things that Covid has taught us is that most jobs can be done effectively from home....but we see that people crave connectivity and interaction.” She said there will likely be a workplace “ecosystem” that is a mix of in-office and work from home. “Offices will continue to thrive but in new ways...a network of virtual and physical places. The purpose of the office is changing,” she explained, more now for necessary interactions and less for tasks that require more individual focus and can be done elsewhere. w Harvard School of Public Health Assistant Professor
Joseph Allen is the coauthor of Healthy Buildings, a book that is becoming a popular read among building professionals. He told a BOMA audience that in spite of the fact that we spend 90% of our time indoors, there are no indoor air quality standards. With the airborne spread of Covid-19, that issue is now becoming critical. And beyond concerns about pandemic infections, better air simply makes people more productive and buildings with healthy features more valuable. “Buildings can make you sick or keep you well,” he said, adding that better air filtration and much more ventilation will improve buildings’ health. Public restroom toilets, he also stressed, can spread Covid-19 when fecal matter is flushed, because its residue remains airborne, especially since most public toilets don’t have lids. w Brian Harnetiaux of USAA Real Estate said, in his remarks to a BOMA audience, that landlords need to “overly communicate” with their tenants, because they require quite a bit of information these days to boost their confidence inside buildings. In addition to frequent electronic communications, he said you should have extensive signage throughout your property and suggested that apps are “key to the future.” He agreed with others who said that work from home is productive, but stressed that “an office provides an integral part of what makes a company special.” “Work should be fun,” he said and suggested that building design morph to include more outdoor features. When someone is infected with Covid-19 in your building, Harnetiaux said other tenants have to be informed, but you don’t need to identify the person.
