NEW YORK CITY—It's no longer enough for multifamily landlords to provide tenants with a clean, safe apartment. Renters are expecting more and—with a healthy dose of creativity—landlords are delivering.
Invesco Real Estate which owns three buildings in Manhattan and two in Brooklyn in its Instrata brand, recently unveiled a grocery delivery service for residents and offers discounts at numerous local restaurants and boutiques, Ritz-Carlton hotels around the world as well as Clubcorp's over 150 properties nationwide.
The company also provides private events for residents and a flexible leasing program whereby residents can move to another property in the portfolio with only 30 days notice. “We allow this because it's a value to the resident and our properties are all stabilized, in great or strong neighborhoods, so it's not like one is suffering,” Rob Neiffer, director of portfolio management at Invesco, tells GlobeSt.com.
The company's holdings in Manhattan include properties at Mercedes House in Midtown, one in NoMad and one in Gramercy while it also owns a building each in Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope.
Meanwhile, Dermot Co. is providing a unique program to residents of its building at 66 Rockwell Place, in the Brooklyn arts community. The famed Brooklyn Academy of Music is curating events at the apartment tower as well as co-sponsoring movie nights at the Dermot building's outdoor movie screen inside of a Zen garden.
In addition, the Mark Morris Dance Co. is providing weekly zumba and yoga classes, as well as dance nights, while BRIC—a non-profit arts organization—is offering several of its most popular classes from the BRIC House Cultural Center right across Fulton Street.
The effort has made a difference both quantitatively and qualitatively, says Neiffer. “It's increased retention by a couple of percentage points. We've had residents ask us what other properties we have that they could go to and we have received emails saying 'we're sorry to leave for a private home because we'll never have this kind of situation.'”
Adds Andrew Levison, principal, director of acquisitions, asset management and operations, Dermot Co., “We can't tell if there was a gain because we weren't focused on rents and retention, our goal was to make the building a special place.”
By that metric, both companies' efforts have been worthwhile. “I've had a tremendous opportunity to create a community,” says Neiffer.
“This program has paid off,” asserts Levison, “because residents are expecting more and we want to remain competitive and create nice buildings where people want to live.”
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
