ATLANTA, DECEMBER 22, 2014 – What do real estate developers Equity Residential, JBG Companies, Fisher Brothers, and Holland Partner Group have in common? They’ve all chosen OxBlue construction cameras for their large, multi-unit residential projects. OxBlue’s construction webcam services, high-definition time-lapse movies, and intuitive technologies are often used by big-box retailers, construction companies, and other builders to monitor construction progress, document build details, and manage projects. Developers also benefit from these capabilities, especially when project owners and other stakeholders are not near the job site.
With development in multiple states, Vancouver, Wash.-based Holland Partner Group (HPG) needed a way for the real estate investment company’s executives and project managers to monitor progress remotely. Citing the technological capabilities and plug-and-play ease of use of OxBlue’s construction camera system, HPG has chosen to use an OxBlue camera on several projects. The latest is a 7-story complex with 606 apartment units atop 26,000 square feet of commercial space and a 320,000 square-foot subterranean parking garage. The mixed-use space in rapidly redeveloping City West, near downtown Los Angeles, boasts such amenities as landscaped courtyards and paseos, rooftop decks, outdoor pools, and fitness center.
Washington, D.C.-area developer JBG Companies also turned to OxBlue for their Galvan at 1800 Rockville Pike project, located in Maryland’s Twinbrook area. The urban area has been a hotspot of redevelopment and renewal for years, but the Galvan is the highest profile project to date. The project is transforming 450,000 square feet of former retail space into 356 apartments with 100,000 square feet for retail. Residential amenities feature landscaped courtyards, outdoor living rooms, grilling areas and fireplaces, and pool. JBG cites functionality and ease of use of the construction camera interface and the excellence of customer service as significant sources of their satisfaction with OxBlue.
After using an OxBlue construction webcam on an earlier project, New York-based developer Fisher Brothers knew it was a given that they’d use it on their 225 E. 39th Street project, a 37-story, 372-unit luxury rental building in the prestigious Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. With the unique amenities the building offers – everything from indoor fire pits and rooftop pool to terraces with lawns and in-unit laundry rooms – Fisher Brothers was especially interested in the ability to market this high-profile project. OxBlue’s administrative controls and simple Web-based platform enable clients to use real-time job site views, high-resolution archived images, and high-definition time-lapse videos for marketing and public relations purposes.
Chicago-based Equity Residential has an OxBlue construction camera on its 170 Amsterdam Avenue project, a 20-story, 236-unit residential building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. In addition to remote job site monitoring and the range of camera mounting locations afforded by the camera’s high-resolution imaging and zooming capabilities, Equity Residential has reaped some benefits they weren’t even expecting:
According to Dave Gill, SVP Construction Management Development, “We were surprised by the features for time-lapse photography; they are great for presentations. We’ve also used archived images and real-time views to resolve schedule disputes and observe quality issues.”
“Being able to see a project at different angles gives us a better understanding of the project than we get from a set of 2-dimensional construction drawings. The job site photos tell a much better story than words can describe.”
-Dave Gill, SVP Construction Management Development, Equity Residential
OxBlue construction camera systems come complete with all hardware, cellular data connection, intuitive technologies, automatically generated time-lapse videos of active projects, and a professionally produced time-lapse video of the completed project.