Summary
- After months of reacting to emerging situations, the industry is finally able to think strategically
- Due to COVID-19, CRE is going to have to manage people flow like airports, air quality like hospitals, and equipment uptime like manufacturing plants
- Innovations in sensor technology means these metrics can be tracked for pennies per square foot in any property type
Across the country, commercial real estate owners and operators are finally starting to feel like they’re in a good position operationally. HVAC settings have been adjusted to flush buildings with more outdoor air, high-efficiency filters have been procured, and preventative maintenance schedules and cleaning protocols have been updated.
The collective breath of relief is evident by the steady ramping up of technology investments to further mitigate COVID-19 risks, improve the tenant experience under difficult circumstances, and measure the effectiveness of efforts.
While COVID-19 has been unprecedented in many ways, the concept of being judged on additional dimensions is not new to commercial real estate. Much like how investments have been increasingly tied to sustainability metrics in the past decade, it is a safe bet to say that ESG-focused investors will be taking viral risk mitigation into account going forward.
Ready or not, offices, apartments, warehouses and hotels are going to have to learn how to manage people flow like airports, air quality like hospitals, and equipment uptime like manufacturing plants.
Fortunately, thanks to innovations in sensor technology, this doesn’t have to be an overwhelming proposition. Light-weight solutions can be deployed affordably and tied into existing workflows, regardless of property type or infrastructure in place.
Here are 8 critical air quality and occupancy metrics that should drive decision making for owners and operators as the new normal begins to take shape.
1. Occupancy
What’s Being Measured
Occupancy sensors are nothing new for commercial real estate. They have been used, primarily in Class A offices, to inform high-level optimizations such as throttling HVAC systems during lunch to save energy costs while people are not in the building.
In short, occupancy sensors measure the number of people in the building and/or in each space.
Practical Use Case
There is no reason that the risk of COVID-19 transmission cannot be significantly mitigated in buildings. However, to do so requires understanding when and where there will be “bottlenecks” of many people in the same place at the same time. This is what occupancy sensors tell you; the number of people in a space and how close they are.
This can inform scheduling, system usage, directions to tenants, and other creative solutions depending on the property.
2. Queue Length
What’s Being Measured
Queue length is a subset of occupancy. It’s measuring how long lines become are while tenants and occupants are waiting their turn.
Practical Use Case
Queue length has been a deployed in airports and malls for a long time to help determine efficiency of keeping passengers or shoppers flowing through. In commercial real estate, the obvious application is the line waiting for elevators.
Elevators are one of the most concerning bottlenecks mentioned earlier. If operators limit the number of passengers in an elevator, there with likely be longer lines in the lobby. If they don’t there will be crowding in the elevator. Collecting queue length data can bring more precision to this careful balance.
3. Wait / Dwell Time
What’s Being Measured
Wait time is the length of time a person spends in a specific area.
Practical Use Case
Wait time, and its opposite – dwell time, have been essential retail metrics for analyzing shopping behavior to increase customer spending. In retail, studies have shown that the longer a person stands looking at a display (dwelling), the more likely they are to buy something. Likewise, longer they must wait in line to make purchases, the more will drop off.
For COVID-19 mitigation, operators are not interested in dwell time, but wait times, as a complement to queue lengths, can give real insight into the tenant experience in the building.
This is important because with the rise of remote working during stay-at-home orders, it’s no longer a foregone conclusion that tenants will need office space. Operators need to both mitigate risks and deliver a positive tenant experience. Combined with queue length, wait times will help provide data for decision making around elevator policies.
4. Temperature and Relative Humidity
What’s Being Measured
Indoor temperature and relative humidity in different zones throughout a building has been captured for a long time with multi-million dollar building management systems.
Now, the same can be collected for a small fraction of the cost with wireless sensors.
Practical Use Case
People flow is important, but it’s only one half of a robust COVID-19 mitigation strategy. The new HVAC configurations in place to introduce more outside air into buildings can cause temperature and humidity levels to go haywire.
Humidity in particular can be quite insidious for the tenant experience. If levels exceed 60% or fall below 40%, tenants will begin to feel uncomfortable. Many will reach for the thermostat, which could only exacerbate the problem. This interplay between temperature and humidity is best tracked with a hybrid measurement known as relative humidity.
Tracking these metrics throughout all major zones of a building will ensure that operators can address fluctuations proactively instead of waiting on tenants to complain.
5. Dew Point
What’s Being Measured
Dew point It is a direct measure of only the moisture content in the air, unlike a measure of relative humidity that is a hybrid measurement of temperature and moisture.
Practical Insights
The dew point is an accurate predictive value that indicates the temperature at which moisture will condense out of the air. Liquid moisture condensing on surfaces can cause staining, creates an ideal environment for mold growth and, left unabated, can result in structural deterioration of many building components.
6. Carbon Dioxide
What’s Being Measured
Carbon dioxide is not only the primary greenhouse gas cause by fossil fuel combustion, it is emitted from humans as we breathe. Indoors, concentrations can reach very high levels and affect cognitive abilities.
Practical Use Case
In a recent interview with The Real Deal, CBRE’s CEO of the New York Tri-State Region, Mary Ann Tighe explained what that means from the tenant’s perspective. “I do think that one of the things that emerges from this is a focus on air quality, which is something that, curiously, we’ve been talking about for 20 years but that everybody has tuned out. Now, suddenly tenants are going to be very interested in, ok, tell us how you filter the air in this building.”
More and more office tenants are becoming aware that CO2 levels are tied directly to productivity. If CO2 levels rise above 1,000ppm (parts per million), tenants will begin to experience drowsiness. If they rise above 2,500ppm, more serious issues such as headaches, sleepiness, poor concentration, loss of attention, increased heart rate and slight nausea can also occur.
7. Particulate Matter
What’s Being Measured
Particulate matter can be many different things. Because it’s impossible to tell the difference between individual particulates, they are classified by their size. Sensors are calibrated to track the size of particulate diameters in microns (one millionth of a meter). These calibrations are generally 0.3 μm, 0.5 μm, 1 μm, 2.5 μm, and 10 μm.
Practical Use Case
There’s no way to monitor a space for COVID-19; the virus has a diameter of around 0.12 μm. Even if there were a sensor (which there isn’t on the market at the moment) of detecting particles that small, it would be impossible to determine if it’s COVID-19 or something else. As importantly, larger particulates tend to absorb smaller ones, meaning you might not detect any particulates the size of COVID-19 but it could still be in the air.
Practically, these measurements are a good proxy for the overall air quality and ventilation effectiveness. If particulate matter is building up, it can be addressed immediately because, while it may not be viral, the risk is enough to warrant a response by operators.
8. Volatile Organic Compounds
What’s Being Measured
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) cover a range of harmful compounds that can be emitted from building materials such as formaldehyde (HCHO), Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S), Nitrous Dioxide (NO2), and Ozone (O3).
Practical Use Case
While particulate matter cannot be broken down into specific sources, air quality sensors are capable of measuring levels of specific compounds that are known to negatively affect tenant health. These are rarer, but also more serious to tenant health than other air quality measurements.
Nevertheless, because they can be tracked with the same sensors taking CO2 and particulate matter measurements, they should be understood and monitored with simple threshold alerts to operators.
Conclusion
To many owners and operators, a list this size is likely going to bring up two immediate objections. First, the cost and second, the addition of another handful of “point solutions” that serve a very narrow function. Operators have become used to switching between six or seven different systems to manage maintenance, vendors, property management, energy, tenant submetering, etc. But many understand that this is not sustainable.
The truth is that all the people flow metrics mentioned can be measured by one wireless device and the air quality metrics can be measured with one other. These can be deployed for pennies per square foot, regardless of the property type or infrastructure in place.
Furthermore, they can be “add ons” to a platform that is used to manage existing operational workflows and data. That way, no one has to learn a new system and they can easily keep track of new alerts within the same mobile app they use for preventative maintenance schedules and to pull up warranties or vendor contracts.
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