Page 34 - Security Today, September 2017

“The building’s common areas could be partition A, suite 1 would be partition B, suite 2 would be C and so on,” Santana said. “Everyone in the building would have the authority to arm/disarm common areas and their own suites.”
Santana said tenants and building managers gain from the inte- gration of the various security layers. For example, an intrusion sys- tem alarm should signal the nearest surveillance camera to begin re- cording. Both key fobs and video intercoms integrate with door locks to allow entry for tenants and visitors. Manufacturers using open standards for their products make this possible. Open standards let integrators select equipment based on price, performance and qual- ity by not limiting end users to proprietary product lines. This helps protect the total investment by allowing components to be replaced without ripping out an entire system.
Both Santana and Arnold said tenant training is important for the smooth operation of building security. The systems are easy to use and just take a few minutes of training.
Errors are most likely to occur when a tenant allows an unknown person to enter the facility. One common routine among burglars is to push multiple apartment extensions on the video intercom keypad, noting who fails to respond. If criminals can convince a tenant to open the door, they’re then free to target those apartments not answering. However, wired intercom solutions provide additional security. Calls from entries to tenant stations can only be answered from within the residence, ensuring all visitors have been properly screened.
“Written building policies should specifically prohibit opening the door to anyone a tenant doesn’t know or expect,” Arnold said. “It’s important to make sure the delivery or repair man is wearing
the uniform of the company he says he represents. Being able to see a person is one of the great values of a video intercom system.”
Santana said a property manager’s message should be clear; if you let someone into the building, that person becomes your responsibility. When interviewing rental applications, he recom- mends managers try to ensure the tenant will be a good match with building policies.
Also, each building needs to maintain a list of approved security products to avoid problems as tenants may want to add their own potentially incompatible security devices to protect individual suites.
Before beginning any new or retrofit job, Arnold completes a risk assessment of the current security equipment. While creating a proj- ect plan, he asks himself how he would want to be protected if he lived in the building.
The definition of a multi-tenant building—various unrelated businesses or residents sharing one facility—will continue to create security challenges for property managers, integrators and tenants. But the proper layers of equipment and strong entry procedures can create security equal to that of a single-tenant building.
As the industry continues to create new and refine older solutions, the choices for securing a multi-tenant building
will increase. What may have seemed impossible
only a year or two ago, is now possible thanks to
the power of network-based systems, integration and open standards.
Bruce Czerwinski serves as U.S. general sales man- ager for Aiphone Corp.
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