ENGIE Services has been providing facility management services for the Polus City Center shopping mall and two office buildings, Polus Tower 1 and Polus Tower 2, since 1 November 2017. The contract, which includes technical management and maintenance of the buildings and facilities, was signed for 3 years.
Polus City Center was the first shopping centre in Slovakia to open in November 2000. It is located in the strategically advantageous Nové Mesto district, only 3 km away from the historical centre. The total area of the shopping centre is 40 thousand m² and together with the office buildings Polus Tower 1 and 2 it has an area of more than 75 thousand m². Since 2006 it has been owned by Austrian Immofinanz Immobilien Anlagen and property management is handled by CBRE. ENGIE Services has previously cooperated with CBRE on the preparation of an energy audit for Polus City Center. This year it also participated in the tender for technical management of the facilities, which was prepared and tendered for Polus by the owner’s representatives and the management company CBRE. In the tender, in addition to the quality of services and price ratio, great emphasis was placed on mutual communication and the use of modern technologies.
“I think that this is where we have managed to convince the client that we are the best choice for the shopping centre management project. A representative of the CBRE manager personally visited our control room, where we presented him the possibilities of using the mobile helpdesk application and the advantages of the Chastia management software, which we also use in our other projects. The transparency of the processes, the constant monitoring of the reported, implemented and planned management and maintenance activities and last but not least the overview of the costs associated with these activities was what finally convinced the client,” says Július Jégh, Senior Project Manager at ENGIE Services. Since 1 November 2017, ENGIE Services has been providing facility management services for the Polus City Center and the two office buildings Polus Tower 1 and 2, which include technical management of facility operations and regular maintenance. As part of the facilities management, ENGIE ensures the performance of regular service inspections, professional inspections and professional tests of technical equipment in the facilities. The services provided will also include energy management and the provision of supervision of technical equipment through dispatching and holding on-call for the performance of emergency services. Eight technicians will provide facility management services across the three facilities. The Polus City Center building is 17 years old and at the time of its construction different European norms and standards were in force. The challenge for CBRE, as well as for ENGIE, will be to upgrade the facilities and the building into a future smart building.
“We are proud to have been awarded this project. It is a challenge for us, and we would like to show that we can make meaningful use of the potential that this building has and gradually modernise its facilities to make its operation as efficient as possible and to reduce energy consumption,” says Július Jégh. The cooperation with CBRE will last for 3 years and the team of specialists from ENGIE Services will use not only their experience from previous projects, but also the synergistic effect of the interconnection of the provided services in the field of energy, property management and technology installation in the management and operation of technical facilities.
“We believe that thanks to the mutually beneficial cooperation we will be able to reveal the hidden reserves of the project and we will be able to provide our tenants and customers, despite the high age of the building, with superior services. The cooperation is only at the beginning, but I am sure that both companies are ready to provide the required management approach and quality services, given their experience and the stable background of their parent companies.” concludes Peter Kremnický, Operations Manager at CBRE.