TEN Takeaways from Joanna Frank, President & CEO of the Center for Active Design
ICYMI: HILO’s David Abrams hosted Joanna Frank, President & CEO of the Center for Active Design, operator of Fitwel, to chat about how healthy buildings drive ROI. Here are some of our takeaways:
There’s demand for healthy buildings
Through the COVID-19 pandemic, Joanna shares that there has been a large acceleration in demand for building developers, operators and investors to have a healthy building. Joanna explains that “we, as an organization, can answer a lot of the questions that people are asking. I get on many calls where people are like, “Oh, if only somebody could tell us what to do.” And it’s like, well, we actually, we can, like, there is a massive body of evidence that shows us how to create environments that are optimized for people and for people’s health. So we do not need to reinvent the wheel. We have the answers already.”
Keep it interesting
Joanna believes that she is a polymath (a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning). When asked by David about her unique skills leading to her success, she tells him that she loves a little bit of everything. This thinking inspired the team at the Center of Active Design to be multi-sectoral. She continues to share that “we have folks who are from research. We have folks who are from real estate, from finance, from design. So it’s really about, ‘how do you translate between all of these different professions and make it relevant to the real estate industry?’” She also tells David that she was going to study to be a doctor, but her interest in science has helped her become better at her job. “This isn’t just a kind of rinse and repeat process that we’re working in. The research continues to evolve. New research studies are published on a weekly, monthly basis, especially at the moment. And so kind of having that thirst and interest and keeping it really fresh.”
Appearances matter
While Joanna and David discussed the need for healthy buildings, she also shares that the way you present yourself is critical in establishing trust. Joanna says “if they see a dead tree outside a building, it doesn’t matter that much about whether you’ve increased your indoor fresh air intakes, because when you deliver that message, they’re already feeling apprehensive and that their safety may not be optimized. That negative impact and trust that comes from a lack of maintenance and so on, is a pretty major hurdle that you’ll need to overcome.”
Multifamily is evolving
When David asked Joanna about the implications for multifamily and office sectors regarding working from anywhere, she shared that her organization works across both sectors. Architects are making changes, citing “they’re [architects] creating more office space, even kind of an office closet, rather than having a large kind of entry closet. These have become like office closets now where you can have like a second desk within a space, having two different entryways within even a smaller apartment to kind of allow for people to be working and living in the same spaces, having more outdoor space as well, both personal outdoor space and having larger balconies.”
Amenities aren’t enough
Joanna reflects on the pre-COVID era, sharing that “there had already been an amenity war where everybody was kind of like adding more and more and more amenities into the spaces and that’s how they were using space.” She also shares that the question became “how do you continue to differentiate yourself in a market when you can’t be offering the yoga classes and so on,” referencing the need for social distancing and quarantine at times. She adds “there’s more demand coming from the individuals and people are already actually asking for health that I think that the residential markets, the residential developers are really now kind of focusing on how do we optimize health rather than optimize this kind of broader idea of just amenities.”
Green space is good for everyone’s health
While the amenity war raged in the multifamily space, commercial real estate operators are finding themselves competing directly with the residential properties in order to get people out of their homes and back to the office. Joanna explains that this changes what employers are looking for in their spaces. Tech companies were seen as promoting the importance of green space, but Joanna shares that “[green space] is actually incredibly effective when it comes to mental health and alleviating depression and anxiety…Just being able to see nature is really good for us. So I think that there’s going to be a lot more kinds of lush offices that don’t look like sterile offices, sterile offices are not good for us as creatures. Our mental health is not really supported by that sterile office that you can’t control anything in. The thing that we like about home is we can control the window. We can open the windows, we can walk outside for a minute. We can water a plant, we can do all of these things.”
Don’t forget about the individuals in the buildings
Citing a large global survey of investors representing $5 trillion in assets under management, the Center for Active Design has examined how COVID has changed investors perceptions on investment strategy. Joanna tells David that “obviously they’re prioritizing health now because of COVID, but one of the big revelations was that the investors pretty much universally, which is why I say, I think that this has this penny has dropped to these for investing in real estate, is that their financial outcomes, the financial outcome of an institutional investor is directly connected to the individuals in the individual buildings that they invest in.” The investors have made the connection that our team at HILO shares frequently, buildings are about PEOPLE!
Health is a market differentiator
Joanna’s organization, the Center for Active Design, is focused on creating and promoting healthy buildings. She shares that “health before COVID was really seen as a nice to have in the market. It was seen as a market differentiator. It was good for reputation, but it wasn’t essential. Now investors are seeing health as a risk. And that puts it in a completely different category. It is now a priority. You have to be able to be able to address those risks, that you have to be able to talk about how you are promoting the health of the individuals within the building, how you’re protecting the health of the individuals in the building, because it’s directly tied to occupancy and occupancy is directly tied to the financial performance of the building. And, you know, that’s, that is the business of real estate.”
