Technical facility management for Polus City Center
On 1st November 2017 ENGIE Services became the facilities management service provider for the shopping centre Polus City Center and two administrative buildings, Polus Tower 1 and Polus Tower 2. The contract covering technical facility management and maintenance of the buildings has been signed for 3 years.
Polus City Center was Slovakia’s première shopping centre when it opened in November 2000. The total area of the shopping centre is 40,000m² and the Polus Tower 1 and 2 administrative buildings bring the total area to over 75,000m². Since 2006 it has been owned by the Austrian company Immofinanz Immobilien Anlagen, while property management services are provided by CBRE Group.
ENGIE Services previously cooperated with CBRE in the preparation of an energy audit of Polus City Center. This year the company bid for the technical facility management of the buildings in a tender process organised by representatives of the owner and the management company CBRE. Alongside the ratio of service quality to price, the tender conditions placed high importance on mutual communication and the use of modern technology. “I think that this is the area where we convinced the client that we were the best choice for the shopping centre management project. A representative from CBRE came in person to our dispatching centre, where we demonstrated the use of our helpdesk mobile application and the benefits of the Chastia administration software that we are already using in other projects. The transparency of our processes, our continuous control of reported, implemented and planned facility management and maintenance activities, and not least our overview of costs associated with these activities were ultimately the factors that convinced the client,” said Julius Jegh, senior project manager at ENGIE Services.
On 1st November 2017, ENGIE Services began providing facility management services for Polus City Center and the two office buildings Polus Tower 1 and 2, including technical facility management in the buildings and routine maintenance. ENGIE’s technical facility management of the buildings includes the performance of regular service inspections and the professional inspection and testing of the technical equipment in the buildings. The provided services include energy management, supervision of technical equipment from the company’s control centre, and emergency standby. Eight technicians will provide facilities management services in the three buildings.
The Polus City Center building is 17 years old and it was built in compliance with different European regulations and standards. The challenge for CBRE Group and ENGIE is to modernise the facilities to keep up with the intelligent buildings of the future. “We are both proud and happy to have won this project. We appreciate the opportunity to show that we know how to make reasonable use of the potential that this buildings offers and gradually modernise its facilities to make its operation as efficient as possible, especially in terms of energy consumption,” says Julius Jegh.
The company’s cooperation with the CBRE Group will last for 3 years and in managing and running the buildings’ technology, the team of specialists from ENGIE Services will use not only their experience from similar projects but also synergies that interconnect different services from ENGIE’s portfolio (energy management, facility management and technology installation services).
“We believe that mutually beneficial cooperation will enable us to find hidden reserves in the project that will allow us to offer our tenants and customers superior services despite the age of the building. We are only at the beginning of our cooperation, but I am sure that both companies’ experience and the stability offered by our parent company will enable us to provide high-quality services,” concludes Peter Kremnicky, CBRE Operations Manager.
