The Winner Is…

I love choosing and giving out awards. Last year, we rolled out a new award, Project of the Year, which was won by Custom Alarm. This year we had several strong applicants, but one emerged as the clear winner: ESCC and its One Wall Street project.

A New York City landmark, the Art Deco tower was converted from an unused office space to luxury residential units — a trend that is gaining ground post-COVID as work-from-home and flex work policies become the norm. But this project was ahead of its time, beginning in 2016, and finishing this spring.

Joseph Bosco, vice president, design and construction for property developer Macklowe Properties, says in the article: “Our layouts were ahead of their time. Macklowe’s vision for One Wall Street was a city within a city. The way the units were designed, the retail block that was developed, were put together intentionally to support that vision. It was planned prior to COVID, but it’s a significant marketing tool in a post-COVID world.” Bosco points to the building’s OneWorks communal workspace, which features separate podcast rooms and other state-of-the-art technology, as indicative of how residences are merging commercial, retail and residential space.

Of course, the pandemic impacted both timelines and supply lines, pushing deadlines and making the security integrator’s job even more challenging than such a large job already was. But ESCC’s tight relationship with Macklowe and their experience with large projects like this made the installation go as smoothly and on-time as possible.

Check out the full article to read about this truly unique and interesting project.

While One Wall Street was the clear choice as the winning project, there were also two other projects we felt were worthy of mention. The first one, A3 Communications (a part of Cook & Boardman) is featured this month as the lead story in our Technology @ Work department (link). department. This project was notable due to the timing of having to build and ramp up quickly for a small manufacturer of lab-grade testing swabs that were suddenly needed for COVID-19 tests.

Look for the other runner-up’s story (Crime Prevention Security Systems) in a future issue, as well as many of the other worthy applicants.

 Speaking of awards, the SDM Systems Integrator of the Year Award nomination form is live and due May 1. If you are an integrator and feel you have a good story to tell this year, I would like to encourage you to apply. The nomination form is quick and easy. Then you have two months to fill out the longer application and submit. The winner will be profiled in the October issue of SDM and featured on the cover. Read more details and nominate your company here.