Dive Brief:
- Nuveen is bolstering its technology portfolio through a partnership with tenant experience, operations and flex office platform Cove.
- The agreement, announced Thursday, will roll out Cove’s platform to eight of Nuveen’s assets, situated in the Boston and Washington D.C. areas.
- The collaboration follows the launch of Cove’s strategic partnership with Cushman & Wakefield in June, and highlights the growing use of tenant data to drive operational efficiencies across real estate portfolios.
Dive Insight:
Nuveen’s partnership with Cove comes at a time when business leaders and building managers are struggling to determine the best ways of approaching return-to-office initiatives. A recent study by workplace analytics platform Envoy found that 80% of executives would have approached return to office strategies differently if they had access to accurate data.
Cove said in the release that its partnership, with one of the largest global real estate owners, would significantly strengthen its asset portfolio and tenant offerings.
Nuveen stated that the integration will help to drive its “tenant first” culture across its portfolio, and says the technology will help it better manage its buildings and enhance tenant experiences.
"In particular, the conference booking is a very intuitive and elegant solution and the platform will allow us to better communicate with our tenants and create more of a sense of community in each of our assets," Skylar Huth, director of workplace, retail and mix-use at Nuveen, said in the release.
Cove’s tenant experience technology recently elicited the interest of Cushman & Wakefield, which tapped the provider to expand its own asset services tenant experience platform, “Presence by Cushman & Wakefield.”
Cushman said the upgraded offering would use workplace experience diagnostics to collect information from building employees. The company added that this information, including the purpose of office, building appeal, programming, space and amenities, could be used to better inform stakeholders and determine strategies for building operations.
The firm also noted that teams can tap into these data-driven insights to make more informed recommendations on prioritizing capital and operational investments for increased tenant satisfaction and “wellbeing at the building level.”
Nuveen and Cushman & Wakefield are not the only large businesses jumping to integrate tenant experience information and better inform operational decisions. CBRE recently partnered with VTS to congregate building tenants, operators and owners onto a single application, with the objective of providing building access and information, flex space scheduling and booking, and maintenance requests.
CBRE, the largest U.S. real estate operator, said owners and operators can then use input data to generate insights on tenant satisfaction, lease renewals and partnerships, further driving efficiencies in their portfolio.
Cove’s recent partnerships follow a $10 million fundraise led by Blackstone’s investment arm in June 2022. That included funding from Kastle Systems, a proptech firm known for its office building access cards, which also provides occupancy data insights.
