Choosing an apartment has always been something of a numbers game: How many bedrooms? How much rent? What’s the address? All can play a role in selecting the ideal rental location.
Today, more and more apartments are upping the ante. Using the latest technology, properties are offering prospective renters a few new numbers to consider in the form of high-tech digital amenities, including super-high-speed Internet access, “smart” laundry debit cards and feature-laden tenant voice mail.
Traditional rental perks, such as a swimming pool, a clubhouse, and your own fireplace, washer and dryer, are still staples of many properties. However, in an era when leisure time is shrinking and working from home, or telecommuting, is on the rise, apartment managers are finding that being wired for the information age can give them the advantage in a crowded marketplace.
Indeed, perhaps the most extreme example is found in the McNeil House Apartment Homes in Austin, Texas. Every apartment there comes complete with surround-sound home theater, high-speed Internet access, and “smart home” technology, which controls the lighting, security and the thermostat.
For instance, when a McNeil tenant arms an apartment’s security system, the heating, cooling and water heater automatically go into a pre-set energy conservation mode.
Closer to home, rentals have not come quite as far, though a number of newer area apartment developments have been constructed with special high-speed Internet access as an option for tenants. The connections are up to 300 times faster than with a common modem and they cost the tenants anywhere from $25 to $125 extra per month.
According to experts who track the rental industry, property managers are finding such high-speed Internet connections are becoming highly desired by tenants.
“It’s definitely a big issue now,” said Kathryn Romanelli of Relcon, the Oak Park-based apartment listing and locating service. “Today, with the Internet being such an important part of daily life, people are looking for their apartment to supply them with the technology to access it from home.
“We’re finding that more apartments that are built from ground zero are building in plans to be wired for the 21st Century. They know it’s going to be important to people.”
The John Buck Co. figured that speedy Internet access would be important to tenants at its 283-unit Park Evanston apartment building, so the service was in place when the high-end complex was completed in March 1997. Rents range from $1,000 to $2,600, and the building is currently 97 percent occupied.
“We perceived this as a need in Evanston, with the proximity of Northwestern University. People there work out of their homes, and there are year-round graduate students who would also utilize the service,” said Richard Lightfine of John Buck.
Lightfine says the service, which started at $100 month but was recently cut to $50, has met with mixed reviews from tenants so far.
“Some signed up and loved it, others didn’t stay with it,” he said. “To some people in our building, $100 a month is nothing, but to others it can be tough to justify.”
The Park Evanston was built to be prepared to embrace new technology as it comes along. But Lightfine notes that it will be the tenants who decide what’s next for the building, not the announcement of the next “big thing”.
“The market will tell us when it’s time to take it up a notch,” he said. “We ask people what’s important to them when they come in and when they leave. It has to make economic sense for us and for the tenant.”
David Kump, general manager of the Park Evanston, estimates that 20 to 25 tenants currently utilize the service, with the number likely to increase when fall classes begin.
“The units that do have the service really love it,” he said. “There is another comparable complex in Evanston that doesn’t have it, so we think it could play a role in someone’s decision as to where to rent.”
For Romeoville’s HighPoint Community, competing apartments were not as much of a concern as competing towns. According to Tom Lowry, manager of the 552-unit complex, HighPoint’s goal is to build a name for Romeoville as a quality residential area and perhaps lure folks away from nearby Naperville.
“The thinking behind HighPoint was to use technology to keep people in touch, and really form that small town atmosphere that so many people are looking for,” he said.
Lowry says HighPoint hopes to do that by making the most of the communications potential of the Internet and related technologies. Though the complex won’t be totally completed until November, some units have been occupied for almost a year, with rents ranging from $715 to $1,195.
HighPoint offers tenants high-speed Internet access through a pure fiber-optic connection with cable provider Media One for $40 per month. Because the connection is made through the existing TV cable line, tenants don’t need to use a phone line for Internet access.
In addition to Web surfing, tenants can use the cable TV connection to view events, classes and seminars held at HighPoint’s community center without leaving home.
Upon its completion this summer, the 27,000-square-foot community center will house a Cyber Cafe, a restaurant where residents can surf the Internet and have their own e-mail addresses, even if they don’t subscribe to the $40 service. Each apartment is also wired for the future, with in-wall connections available for everything from voice-activated lighting to in-apartment computer networks.
“We also have our own proprietary voice mail and e-mail systems to share information,” Lowry said. “We are a flierless community. We use targeted broadcast voice mail to get messages out to specific tenants on events, construction updates, even club meetings.”
HighPoint’s Web site is designed and operated by a group of young people living in the complex, called the Cyber Arts Club, who volunteer their time to gain experience working on the Internet.
High Point is in the process of developing a tenants-only portion for the site. It will offer on-line grocery shopping from the HighPoint store and a tenant database where neighbors can voluntarily post information about themselves.
“Then if you need a car mechanic, for instance, you can just check the database,” Lowry said.
Scott Knollenberg, a 28-year-old health and safety inspector for Caterpillar, has lived at HighPoint since last September. He has been so impressed with the experience that he recommended it to his sister, who moved in several months ago.
“What caught my attention was the Cyber Cafe, the voice-mail system, and just the overall way HighPoint tries to put technology to work for a community,” said Knollenberg. “It was nice to see an attempt to get back to a style of living where everybody knows each other.”
Most properties offering high-tech amenities these days are newer constructions, such as HighPoint, which have had the capabilities designed in before construction. While the costs of retrofitting an existing property might seem prohibitive, one recent attempt has succeeded just outside Boston.
Princeton at Mount Vernon is a 144-unit property in Andover, Mass. Until last year, the 25-year-old building had been allowed to fall into “severe disrepair,” according to Terence Flahive, president of Princeton Properties, which purchased and rehabbed the site.
“There had been significant crime and drugs, the average rent was $400 to $500 per month, and occupancy was low, but it had a great location,” Flahive said.
Close to Boston’s commuter highways and a corridor of high-tech employers, the site’s location was enticing enough for Flahive and Princeton to gamble.
The Lowell, Mass.-company spent $1.5 million to update the building, including the addition of high-speed Internet lines, electronic property access via an ID card, and the use of “smart” or debit cards for “quarterless” laundry facilities. The gamble paid off. The rehabbed complex is now 100 percent full, with rents around $800 per month.
“There was no other way to give it sizzle, no place for a pool or a workout area, so you make what you can. It turned out to be just right for the 24- to 40-year-olds who work nearby in high-tech industries,” Flahive said.
Living up to it’s name, 21st Century Telecom Group in Chicago is opening up the high-tech pipeline for area tenants.
“We typically sell our cable TV product to a rental property and then we upgrade the wiring in the building,” said Susan Quandt, senior vice president of marketing and sales. “We then have the capability to offer high-speed Internet service to any tenant in the building. We have people running small businesses out of their homes; people putting up Web sites. It’s really exciting.”
Quandt says 21st Century has wired everything from large apartment complexes to six-unit buildings on the North Side and plans to enter the downtown Chicago market this fall.
Although high-tech features at apartment properties are still comparatively rare, Relcon’s Romanelli says rental companies are moving fast for fear of being left behind. As a result, tenants should be patient and look around to find the best blend of low- and high-tech amenities that are best for them.
“Apartments know people want the options and are willing to pay a bit more to have them,” she said. “Everything else being equal, it can put one property ahead of another, and they are all looking for the next big thing.”
