A Californian mixed-use lifestyle center was searching for a security integration solution that could meet the different security needs of residential, commercial and retail with one, cohesive system. In partnering with Edgeworth, they achieved their goal of a state of the art integration that was aesthetically pleasing, easy to use, cost-effective, and most importantly, able to keep the people and property on the site safer than before.
About the Client
This particular lifestyle center was built by a S&P 500 commercial realty company with multiple large commercial and mixed-use properties across the country. The parent commercial realty company develops and manages properties that are known for being located in desirable, densely populated, high-income areas. These high-end builds provide residents, tenants, and workers with high-quality designer centers to live and do business in.
About the Site
Modeling their site after the population centers of Europe that tend to be higher density, the client built this lifestyle center to combine residential, retail, and office buildings side-by-side, resulting in an increased sense of community in the people who interact within it. Since opening in 2002, this award-winning lifestyle center features a large catalog of luxury stores and an array of gourmet dining choices, ranging from casual to fine dining. It offers many community spaces and social events to foster a small-town feel with the convenience of big city living.
The Problem
The client’s lifestyle center required a security integration that could meld the needs of all three types of spaces: retail, residential, and office. The parent realty company built the infrastructure—a large centrally managed campus—from the ground up. Previously, Edgeworth had helped migrate and refresh access control systems for the parent company when these systems were approaching end-of-life/end-of-support, so the client already knew and trusted the superior quality of work provided by Edgeworth.
With a focus on constant innovation and a drive to provide ever-improving experiences for the customers through easy-to-use amenities, the parent company turned their eye towards A.I. cameras. Ultimately identifying Avigilon as the ideal solution to supplement on-site security, the client needed a partner with extensive Avigilon experience. With a track-record of integration excellence, an existing relationship with the client, and vast experience with Avigilon (a preferred Avigilon partner), Edgeworth Security was the natural choice.
Additional Considerations
The lifestyle center required a sophisticated yet simple to use system so that their residents, tenants, and workers could enjoy ease-of-use. While effectiveness and ease-of-use was paramount, aesthetics were also a major concern due to the attention to detail and investment made in the look and feel of the property. The equipment and the manner it was installed needed to blend into the property and not detract from the world-class environmental design crafted by the parent commercial realty company.
Why Edgeworth
Edgeworth was the right choice for the lifestyle center’s security system integration because of a long history of preferred partnership with Avigilon equipment, a dedication to staying ahead of the curve with state of the art equipment, and a deep product knowledge. Edgeworth has a long track record of achievement, working for more than 20 years in the region that the lifestyle center is located in. With professionalism and customer service always top of mind, Edgeworth’s integration experts provide a superior integration of state of the art equipment that seamlessly tie into the aesthetics of a client’s property and work with any pre-existing security elements when possible. Edgeworth maintains a first-rate reputation through core corporate tenants of professionalism, white-glove service, and dedication to the needs and wants of the client. Our integration team have a combined 100 years of experience and are experts at working with existing infrastructure and bringing sites up to date with state of the art technology.
“Edgeworth has been a great partner. They have given us great pricing and support and implementation and property management. It’s been a great experience slowly growing the relationship.”
The Solution
Edgeworth created an integration where all the cameras and doors are now centrally managed by the on-site monitoring center. This centrally managed system reduces operation costs for both the lifestyle center and the commercial realty parent company. From the perspective of the tenant and end-users, the integration by Edgeworth provides more flexibility, improved ease-of-use to the lifestyle center’s customers, and overall better amenities. For commercial clients these new amenities include features like people counting, dwell time, and business intelligence. For the safety of guests, tenants, shoppers, and residents alike, the parking areas are more secured thanks to constant monitoring by the smart cameras.
The client also benefits from Edgeworth’s established relationships with local law enforcement; when incidents do occur, law enforcement deploys quickly and arrives fast. Law enforcement knows that when they are called to handle an incident identified by Edgeworth equipment, they can be confident that it is not a false alert; the incident has been video verified.
The Outcome
The challenge with traditional security is that it’s reactive, but with Edgeworth’s integration of A.I. powered Avigilon cameras, security at the lifestyle center is now more proactive. Edgeworth configured the system to better meet the property’s needs and maximize the impact these A.I.-powered, smart cameras have in guarding against and alerting to unwanted activity. During the configuration, Edgeworth’s integration team delineated the parameters on the smart cameras’ views and established what activity the cameras were to send alerts for. For example, if the smart cameras notice a car driving around the site at an unusual time, a person entering an unauthorized area, or an object crossing a perimeter but not leaving it, the camera’s Artificial Intelligence will send an alert to the property’s monitoring center in real time. The expertise in configuration ensures fewer false alerts, alleviating time spent reviewing non-event alerts. These smart cameras eliminate the need for a physical guard to manually cast eyes across views from over 300 cameras and eliminates the element of human error. This provides greater efficiency in the use of manned guard resources and reduces cost while improving outcomes. This has also led to a decrease in time to discovery and time to response, mitigating the risk to people and property from any events that might occur.
In addition to this particular lifestyle center, Edgeworth Security has done other integrations for the client on additional properties. At those locations, Edgeworth Security monitors those sites from our US-based monitoring center. Our UL827b certified monitoring center oversees these properties 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, ensuring fast law enforcement response time and an exhaustive video archive.
“Edgeworth has been a great partner. They have given us great pricing and support and implementation and property management. It’s been a great experience slowly growing the relationship. It was important to partner with a tech company that wasn’t fly-by-night, that wanted to partner with a vendor with a long-term business to understand our internal workings to see what other options there are. We can now provide technology features through cameras like people counting, dwell time, business intelligence, to help with marketing property management. Building value adds to see what we can do on top of core integration to drive more business intelligence. The integration is really working with our Avigilon cameras.
The integration piece on the installation side did a great job making sure those requirements are fulfilled. They’re not just concerned with a one-time solution. They’re a good partner that understands our core businesses and they help us figure out the way the technologies help our bottom line, increase profit, and decrease costs.”
—Network & Property Technology Services Director for the Parent Company
