A new company has been formed to produce the components that enable the creation of smart buildings. The company, Workstage, can deliver buildings that operate 20 to 30 percent less expensively than typical office buildings. Flexible arrangement of space allows companies the freedom to expand or decrease office units without construction expenses. Operational expenses are also lower because of the Workstage office system’s unique platform design. One savings feature is the location of the heating and cooling systems. Air conditioning is delivered from below the floor, pushing the cool air up rather than sending it down from the ceiling to mix with the warm air, which rises.

The platform design not only allows for energy and cost savings, but it also provides convenience. Each workspace in an office — from the reception area to the conference room — is on a platform, raised 18 inches from the floor. The platform, manufactured by Tate, is a concrete floor encased in steel and covered with plush carpet to eliminate any hollow sound or noise. The area beneath the platform houses all the working components to the office. The power, the telephone and communications ports, the heating and air conditioning systems, lighting systems, and sprinkler systems can all be accessed and controlled through a panel in the floor. These systems, which usually run above ceilings and through holes in permanent walls made of sheet rock, are more accessible in the Workstage office. When maintenance, repairs, or additions, such as a new power outlet, are required, productivity does not cease because repair or maintenance workers are climbing into the ceiling and drilling into walls. Instead, the building engineer can access the Workstage control panel in the floor and perform the needed work — often in a matter of 15 minutes or less.

The Workstage offices can be fit to new buildings of any size, or retrofit to existing one- or two-story office buildings. Businesses that benefit from Workstage offices include law firms, banks, schools, and research and call centers. The office systems are pre-engineered and require no permanent walls inside the building’s shell. Walls and floors are demountable, thus giving any building a more useful and longer life. If a business needs to expand or decrease, the Workstage has the flexibility to do that without major construction. Everything is moveable and removable — which means that the office is not only adaptable to the current tenant, it is adaptable to the next tenant at a lower cost.

When a tenant leases an office, typically tenant improvement packages are negotiated. An improvement package may include $25 per square-foot paid by the owner to move walls, re-run air conditioning and rewire the office. The Workstage office system can save as much as $10 per square foot off the typical improvement costs. Because the communications systems and power are already distributed throughout the building, those expenses are saved and the remaining money can be used for workstations and furniture. A bank can become a law firm, which can then become a call center without major renovation or demolition. Due to the physical adaptability of the space and the savings, if a tenant moves out, the landlord can re-tenant the space quickly.

In addition to the cost savings and flexibility that Workstage provides, it is also a worker-friendly and an environmentally-sensitive building because of the limited use, if any, of sheet rock, which often can not be disposed of in landfills. In addition, energy efficiency is achieved because of the extensive use of natural light.

In most office buildings, work areas are over-lit with artificial lights. Workstage buildings maximize the use of natural and ambient lighting, thus cutting down on the glare of artificial light, which is harmful to the users’ eyes and uses more power — making a building less energy efficient.

Workstage is a brand new concept in building with only three Workstage offices completed in the United States. Workstage was formed by Steelcase, Inc. in partnership with Gale & Wentworth and backed by Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds.

Grubb & Ellis represents Workstage east of the Mississippi and will work closely with local commercial brokers to deploy Workstage implementations in Southwest Florida.

The cost savings, flexibility, and environmental sensitivity of the buildings make sense for this area. Each day the available land for commercial real estate construction becomes more and more limited. Unless current and new buildings are made to be adaptable to new technology and a variety of businesses, building owners will endure great costs to continually demolish outdated buildings only to rebuild another building that will also become outdated — and that is not smart building.

Karen Johnson is a Commercial Real Estate Advisor for Grubb & Ellis|VIP-D’Alessandro