Page 28 - RC14-EDGE-Spring Issue-1Z

In the TRENCHES
The power of collaboration can be a great tool in
solving the technology issues many IT professionals
struggle with. Featured in this article is a candid
interview conducted by Chris Saah, President of
TecFac with Sandy Jacolow, CIO of Silverstein
Properties, about the technology opportunities and
challenges he and his team faced while developing 4
Chris Saah World Trade Center in New York, the most advanced
office building of the 21st Century. While Silverstein
President Properties is most often associated with this project,
TecFac
they are also involved in many other world class real estate developments
featuring the latest building technologies.
Chris Saah is President of TecFac, which provides IT support services to
Transwestern and its clients throughout the US. Follow Chris at www.twitter.
com/csaahcio.
Ispoke with Sandy Jacolow shortly after the
opening of 4 World Trade Center in November
of 2013. From his 48th floor apartment in
the NoMad (NOrth of MADison Park) section
of Manhattan, we reflected on the benefits of
down time when one works in the 24/7 world of
Sandy technology, the high cost of living in the Northeast
Jacolow and the uber high cost of a night out in New York
City, before turning our conversation to his work as
CIO CIO of Silverstein Properties.
Silverstein Properties
Saah: Tell us about the opening of WTC Tower 4. It’s a very exciting
time, not just for Silverstein Properties, but for New York City, and
for that matter, the country.
Jacolow: I was just up on the roof of the building last week and it is
amazing. You can nearly touch Tower One, and have a vantage point
you can’t get anywhere else. And of course the view of the Manhattan
skyline is absolutely spectacular.
Saah: So the construction is 100% completed on Tower 4?
Jacolow: World Trade Center Tower 4 is open. We received our
temporary Certificate of Occupancy in November and had our ribbon
cutting in mid-November. The Port Authority and New York City are
our first major tenants and are taking up about half of the building.
They have already started interior construction and should take
occupancy this summer. All the construction fences are gone from
around the site and we are open and ready for business.
Architect Fumihko Maki brought together art, architecture, and real
estate in an unbelievable way. For example, the black marble wall in
the lobby (which is 30 feet high) reflects the 9/11 memorial, which the
building faces. Also, at the back of each of the three major elevator
banks, you see these amazing video walls using LED technology, each
with distinct images of many of the elements used in the memorial.
From outside you can see videos clips of the sky, the earth, and
26 Realcomm
the water on these 30 foot high walls; a dramatic impact and really
amazing to see.
To show you how far these technologies have come, in the past
with a system like this you would have been married to consultants
after installation, to operate it. With this system, marketing and IT
could work together creating a video for a special event, render it in
the proper format in no time at all and you actually upload it using a
flash card like you or I would use in our cameras.
Saah: Tell us about the systems you’ve deployed in the building.
Jacolow: Tower 4 is LEED certified and very sustainable, but also has
some interesting aspects that create technology challenges. It is a
column free building that’s almost a thousand feet tall. The building
core was designed to allow for very dense occupancy, which is great
for our tenants. As part of the infrastructure, we had to deploy three
different wireless networks in the building: a first responders system in
case of emergency, a DAS system, and Wi-Fi. Because of the thickness
and material used in the core we had to strategically place a larger
number of access points to penetrate the core, which was constructed
to withstand practically anything. It’s an interesting case study in how
construction affects technology. We also plan to extend Wi-Fi beyond
the building to a campus style network that will blanket the World
Trade Center area from Fulton Street to the West End. Once complete,
and in conjunction with the Downtown Alliance and Port Authority,
Tribeca’s public Wi-Fi access could be a model for many cities.
Saah: For those who are not familiar with the term, DAS stands for
Distributed Antenna System.
Jacolow: Correct. It is basically a combination of micro cells and
antennas. It’s a neutral host system, so all of the major carriers can
come in, pay a fee, and integrate with the infrastructure system.
Whether you are in the lobby, your space on the floor, an elevator, or
stairwells, you will be able to make a call and use data services. The
ability to call from the stairwells is not only a convenience, but as we
have learned from history, a necessity in times of an event.
Saah: You must have great business partnerships to get that done.
Jacolow: We do. We’ve been working very closely with Cisco and they
did a great job. We’ve designed this system to support technology
well into the future; when the gigabit barrier is broken on the device
side, we’ll have the back end infrastructure to support it. This is not