a clean sweep Honoring High-rise Cleaning Efforts The effort that staffs put forward to keep large properties up and running is often overlooked. By: Amanda Martini-Hughes, assistant editor T They’re one of the awe-inspiring parts of any major city: Skyscrapers and other large buildings that see people going in and out at all hours of the day. What makes these types of buildings and properties so unique is that they are often small cities in and of themselves. They are buildings that have to sustain a large number of workers and visitors and therefore see more than their fair share of wear and tear on a daily basis. These properties have different, often more difficult, cleaning and maintenance problems, from high-traffic areas to cater-ing to building occupants that may be in the buildings at any given time during the day. More than any other kind of building, large properties can be overlooked for the effort that staffs put forth in order to keep them up and running. They seem to run by magic and clean themselves. But we know this to be a fallacy. The Face Of Recognition One group who strives to recognize the time and effort that goes into each of these building is the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY). The board, made up of a myriad of in-dividuals involved in New York real estate and the management of New York build-ings, holds an annual Commercial Man-agement Leadership Breakfast in order to honor some of New York City’s finest prop-erty managers. The 2013 breakfast, which was the 10 th annual breakfast, was held on May 30, 2013, at the Hilton New York. The awards benefit stand-out profession-als for excellence in property management. The honored individuals are those who have gone above and beyond showing out-standing leadership and commitment to building operations. Ten awards are presented in categories that range from on-site management to en-gineering and security. “REBNY’s commercial management divi-sion members are the individuals that help our city’s buildings run smoothly on a daily basis. From property managers to engineers and porters, all play a vital role in keeping commercial properties well maintained and we’re proud to honor them each year with these awards,” said Steven Spinola, REBNY president. “The challenges our industry faced in the wake of Hurricane Sandy emphasize the hard work and dedication of our commercial managers. We commend them for all of their efforts.” Manager of the Year and Best Engine Room. Portfolio Manager of the Year is chosen by the chairs of the committee. Best Engine Room is chosen after the committee takes a short-notice tour of the nominated facilities, allowing each build-ing only 24-hours’ notice before the tour is to take place to ensure that no engine room has an advantage over another. More Than Deserved The property managers who operate some of New York City’s largest buildings don’t often receive any recognition for the efforts. “What they do on a day-to-day basis to secure and maintain the buildings, and therefore the operations of the businesses with them, is an immense task,” said Angela Pinsky, REBNY’s senior vice president for management services/government affairs. Over the past few years, the awards have had a bit of a makeover, recently opening up nominations for property managers that are not immediate REBNY members, but are still vital to REBNY members’ teams. The Commercial Management Leader-ship Breakfast is the only awards ceremony of its kind and opening it up to non-members has allowed these exceptional members of New York City’s real estate community the ability to get the recognition that they greatly deserve. CM www.cmmonline.com How It Works While the qualifications and criteria vary from award to award, all nominations must iden-tify how the nominee has gone above and beyond their typical duties in the last year. REBNY’s Commercial Management Committee reviews submitted nominations by discussing the nominations that are re-ceived in each category and each candi-date’s noted accomplishments. The committee then takes a blind vote by email to choose the winners. There are two awards that are not deter-mined by the blind voting process: Portfolio 47 Image courtesy of REBNY
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