CHICAGO—The use of online sites to shop has greatly increased recently, and with more customers demanding same-day deliveries, 2016 promises to be a year when many multifamily operators will have to develop a strategy to handle the hundreds of packages that arrive each day.
"It's only going to get busier," Maureen Vaughn, vice president of marketing at The Habitat Co., tells GlobeSt.com. The Chicago-based company's Hubbard Place, a 44-floor residential tower in downtown Chicago, receives between 150 and 300 packages each day, and that's about double the volume seen two years ago when it opened.
Habitat anticipated the need and installed what one broker called a "James Bond-style package alert system." Residents are notified via text message with a secret code they use to open a custom wood drawer built into the lobby wall and retrieve the package.
"Our in-house architect looks at form and function and then combines the two," Vaughn adds. The result is an attractive feature that blends with the rest of the lobby and ensures the high volume of packages does not cause an unsightly clutter. Most importantly, staff members don't get distracted and can focus on providing other services.
The company, which manages more than 23,000 units nationwide, is currently preleasing 1000 S. Clark St., a 29-story apartment tower in Chicago's South Loop, and although no final decisions have been made how to handle package deliveries there, Vaughn says if they had to do Hubbard Place again, Habitat would make sure to add even more lockers. "This is the type of service our demographic is looking for, and you always need to learn from experience."
Many retailers anticipate that online shopping will continue its exponential growth. A few months ago, Richard Baker, governor and executive chairman of Toronto-based Hudson's Bay Co., one of the most successful retailers in Canada, Germany and the US, told a conference here that his company was investing heavily in state-of-the-art information technology to build its online capacity. The investment was well worth it, and in the previous quarter, HBC's online business grew by 30%.
"We've pretty much seen every type of delivery, from a full set of car tires, to doggie wheelchairs, so we need to be prepared for whatever comes," says Zach Ktsanes, asset manager at Crescent Heights, which has managed more than 5,000 units in Chicago. In addition to dedicating storage space to accommodate deliveries, its buildings also use technology to manage the receipt and notification of each delivery.
RMK Management also uses a scan-and-notify electronic package management system, in addition to offering extra storage space at the nearly 30 communities it manages throughout the Midwest. "Efficient management of deliveries is key to staying on top of the volume of packages, and that starts with notifying residents nearly instantly when an item has arrived so they can collect it," says Diana Pittro, executive vice president of RMK Management.
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
