Multi-family property turns to cloud-based system to manage access rights for residents and guests

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BACKGROUND

Pennrose is a nationally recognized developer and manager of affordable, mixed-use and mixed-income properties. The company recently unveiled Premiere Residences of New Brunswick, NJ, a luxury residential tower co-located with the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center. Residents enjoy a number of best-in-class amenities that cater to a “live, work, play” lifestyle, including a rooftop pool and deck, penthouse sky lounge, outdoor fire pit, state-of-theart fitness center and billiard room. It also includes space for coworking and private meetings.

The complex offers 165 market rate apartment homes and 42 income-restricted units to accommodate the district’s actors, musicians, dancers and theater support personnel.

THE CHALLENGE

The building’s previous system consisted of software installed on a local computer, and managing access privileges for hundreds of residential units and multiple common areas was cumbersome. If the computer became unresponsive and a recent backup of the resident database was unavailable, management was tasked with manually recreating resident profiles. In addition, when residents found themselves locked out of their apartment, a manager was compelled to come on property to grant access and issue replacement keys.

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THE SOLUTION

Pennrose turned to the ASSA ABLOY ACCENTRA™ cloud-based system to manage access rights for residents and guests. ACCENTRA is an affordable solution that enables property owners to replace costly, cumbersome conventional locks and keys with an easy-to-use, scalable access management system.

John DeSantis, vice president of Information Technology at Pennrose, said, “The ACCENTRA system has simplified access management for us and saved us considerable time and money. We no longer have to allocate resources to rekey locks when an occupant moves out; in a matter of seconds, we are able to revoke that individual’s credentials. The system also enables us to respond faster to our tenant’s needs. For example, with ASSA ABLOY ACCENTRA™, if a resident is locked out of his or her unit, we simply send a one-time PIN they enter into their door’s lock to gain entry.”

Property managers are able to log in anytime, anywhere to ACCENTRA using a web-enabled device. The system is fully secure with the highest level of encryption. An intuitive interface enables administrators to add, remove or modify access rights to individual units and common areas such as fitness rooms, swimming pools and parking garages. ACCENTRA also simplifies access for residents themselves, enabling them to access multiple areas using a single electronic card or fob.

Administrators customize settings in ACCENTRA, defining properties, individual units and door locations.The system captures the date and time of all activity on property, enabling users to export an event log to address security iissues or errant behavior.

DeSantis added, “It’s incredibly convenient for several administrators to have access to tenant profiles at all times no matter where they are located. This system’s powerful capabilities certainly help support our mission to create great lifestyles.”

ASSA ABLOY ACCENTRA™ BENEFITS:

Eliminate costly key management and lock rekeying
Add, remove or modify access rights remotely using any web-enabled device
Customize access credentials to residential units and common areas
Simplify access for residents using a single credential
Distribute one-time PINs for unit lockouts, misplaced cards or fobs
Capture the date and time of all activity; export audit logs to address security issues
Facilitate management of multiple properties
Eliminate the cost and maintenance of on-site servers and wireless networks