Bridge Commercial Real Estate, an established player in the U.S. commercial office market that specializes in creating next generation workspaces, set out to reimagine the workplace by offering a connected experience that is highly desirable. BCRE aimed to take a transformative step in its long-term strategy to enable self-service access to office and amenity spaces.
Bridge Commercial Real Estate (BCRE) is an established player in the U.S. commercial office market that specializes in creating desirable, next-generation workspaces. BCRE provides world-class commercial office brokerage services, property management, accounting and commercial construction services for Bridge Office assets. It is the commercial brokerage subsidiary of Bridge Investment Group (Bridge), a leading, alternative investment manager, diversified across specialized asset classes, with approximately $48.8 billion of assets under management (as of March 31, 2023).
BCRE introduced contactless access enablement through employee badges in Apple Wallet at its 1277 Lenox Park office in Atlanta. Corporate employees, tenants and other authorized users can now easily access flex office spaces, tenant floors and amenity spaces with their iPhone or Apple Watch.
Lenox Park is home to a diverse array of tech and professional services tenants and is one of six nationwide locations for Bridge’s flex office program known as Abridge, which connects businesses with move-in ready spaces quickly and efficiently without having to sacrifice the independence of their brand or workspace.
“Our move to put employee badges in Apple Wallet is a transformative step in our long-term strategy to enable self-service, unfettered access to office and amenity spaces for the benefits of our tenants across our portfolio of Class A buildings nationwide,” said Mark Ferris, chief operating officer at Bridge Commercial Real Estate.
Employee badges in Apple Wallet are provisioned from the BridgeEngage app using SwiftConnect AccessCloud, which seamlessly brings together the building and business solutions that govern physical access. SwiftConnect, which is a leading provider of connected access enablement, enables seamless access within the building by ensuring each person’s ID is on a phone or watch. Built for interoperability, the SwiftConnect platform integrates with disparate access control, enterprise and building systems to central access management.
“SwiftConnect’s mission is to help landlords and enterprises adapt to the new way of work and optimize their offices by removing the complexity related to connecting people to the right place at the right time,” said Matt Kopel, co-CEO of SwiftConnect. “Our project at Bridge’s Lenox Park location reinforces the value of helping landlords provide a street-to-seat experience for users, while immediately automating building access management and enhancing their overall security posture.”
Ferris explained, “We selected SwiftConnect based on its leadership in connected access enablement and its open approach to integrating with a broad range of building and suite-level management systems. This allows us to operate our diverse environment of building access solutions as a unified network rather than a portfolio of disparate assets.”
Users can simply tap their iPhone or Apple Watch on Wavelynx Ethos™ Readers to unlock access to secured areas. With Express Mode, tenants do not need to unlock their device to use their badge in Apple Wallet. Even if the phone needs to be charged, the device can be used in Power Reserve mode.
When a Bridge employee or flex space user has an employee badge in Apple Wallet, it is never shared with Apple or stored on Apple servers. If their iPhone or Apple Watch is misplaced, the owner of the device can promptly use the Find My app to lock the device and help locate it. Employee badges in Apple Wallet are stored on personal devices and take full advantage of the privacy and security built into iPhone and Apple Watch.
Strong partnerships were also key to this deployment. Equiem, a tenant experience technology provider, developed the BridgeEngage app. Employees and tenants can add their employee badge to Apple Wallet after an initial set-up through the BridgeEngage app. Once added, the badge gives them access to their office building, tenant floor, flex office spaces and tenant amenities.
“Our development of the BridgeEngage app is empowering Bridge to create work environments that are connected, intuitive, and engaging for all tenants and employees,” said Gabrielle McMillan, CEO at Equiem. “Our partnership with Bridge and SwiftConnect has been a win-win for all parties. We’re excited to be at the forefront of redefining the workplace experience for Bridge tenants.”
The Bridge deployment leverages MIFARE DESFire credential technology to deliver an intuitive, private and secure access transaction when a user presents their iPhone or Apple Watch to Wavelynx Ethos Readers. Rob Lydic, president of Wavelynx, stated, “The Bridge project at Lenox Park is a major milestone as the first launch of employee badges in Apple Wallet with Wavelynx. SwiftConnect’s shared vision and access enablement expertise made the company the ideal partner for this important and inaugural deployment.”
NextGen Security, an integrated physical and electronic security provider, played an integral role in the installation and configuration of the access control system.
CASE STUDY
Company:
Property Management
Location:
Atlanta, GA, USA
Objective:
Bridge Commercial Real Estate, an established player in the U.S. commercial office market that specializes in next-gen workspaces, set out to reimagine the workplace by offering a connected experience that is highly desirable. BCRE aimed to take a transformative step in its long-term strategy to enable self-service, unfettered access to office and amenity spaces.
Solution:
To enhance the tenant experience and provide easier ways to access workspaces, BCRE rolled out contactless access enablement through employee badges in Apple Wallet at Bridge’s 1277 Lenox Park office in Atlanta, powered by SwiftConnect. This new type of enablement gives authorized users the ability to easily access flex office spaces, tenant floors and amenity spaces using their iPhone or Apple Watch. Bridge chose SwiftConnect based on its leadership in connected access enablement and its open approach to integrating with a broad range of building and suite-level management systems.
Results:
Bridge provides corporate employees and tenants with a seamless, connected experience that improves collaboration and increases employee engagement. The deployment provides tenants a superior, digital one-key solution across Bridge’s entire office portfolio. It also enables their team to monetize underutilized spaces across the portfolio to a much broader customer base, simply by adopting the SwiftConnect software that overlays on a very fragmented access control market and environment.
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