Finally, a Web-based real estate business to really get excited about.

This week marked the launch of Workspeed, Inc., which is backed by nearly a dozen large commercial real estate companies. Workspeed provides a business-to-business, Internet-based service that allows office building owners, managers, tenants and vendors to streamline building management.

There are plenty of buzzwords and Internet-age platitudes the company uses to describe its offerings (e.g. workflow, collaboration, etc. But here’s the bottom line. Say you’re a tenant in an office building and a maintenance problem arises. Everyone in the office is complaining about the air conditioner not working, or the sink being stopped up, or the light bulbs being burned out.

Let’s face it – maintenance requests seldom are dealt with as quickly or smoothly as tenants would like. Currently, most tenants who have problems must call the property manager, spend time on hold, make a maintenance request, and then follow up multiple times to find out the status of the repair.

Well, Workspeed removes a lot of the hassles involved with maintenance requests and other property management issues.

Here’s the technical stuff. Workspeed’s “collaboration platform” provides all participants in the operation of a commercial building with an integrated on-line tool for property-related communication. No more waiting on hold, no more leaving messages that will be ignored.

According to Workspeed, the application service provider (ASP) delivers improved tenant service, greater efficiency, increased property revenue and collections, reduced expenses, and a useful and transparent database of property operating information.

Workspeed initially will be used to initiate, authorize, dispatch and track maintenance requests. I picture the service working much like retail stores on the Internet, which allow buyers to track the status of their orders, from warehouse fulfillment to shipping.

The product also can be used to schedule “shared building resources” like conference rooms, request additional landlord or vendor services and provide all users with access to a common data source for property information.

“For a number of years, the real estate industry has recognized that technology offered the promise of making building management more efficient and cost-effective. There have been incremental advances, but now Workspeed represents a true breakthrough,” said Richard Ruben, co-founder and chairman. “The tremendous reception we’ve received so far is a direct reflection of the fact that this is an initiative developed by knowledgeable real estate people for the real estate industry.”

Building owners and managers can use Workspeed as a management tool to sort and analyze property operating information for an individual building or across a portfolio of properties.

Workspeed’s partners represent more than 400 million square feet of office space and include Apollo Real Estate Advisors, LLC, Archon Group, LP, Insignia Financial Group (NYSE: IFS), Jack Resnick & Sons, Lawrence Ruben Company, Inc., Mack-Cali Realty Corporation (NYSE: CLI), Newmark & Company, Shorenstein Company LP, Starwood Capital Group, Williams Real Estate Co., Inc., and Vornado Realty Trust (NYSE: VNO).

Financial backing also has been provided by Partech International, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm and Peregrine Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: PRGN), a major provider of packaged infrastructure management application software.

Workspeed begins service immediately at three commercial office buildings -- 600 California Street in San Francisco, and 1 Dag Hammarskjold Place and 600 Madison Avenue in New York City. Service will be phased in at more selected properties throughout the United States and overseas beginning next month.

“We are well positioned to extend our current market leadership from the properties represented by our strategic investors to the entire U.S. market,” said Gilles Queru, co-founder and CEO. “In addition, we will seek to establish our presence around the world -- initially in Europe and then in Asia.”

Published: September 22, 2000

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Lesley Hensell covers commercial real estate and financial issues for Realty Times. Based outside of Dallas, Lesley works with high-tech and real estate clients as an independent marketing and public relations consultant. She also writes for several publications, including the Dallas Morning News. E-mail Lesley at: lhensell@earthlink.net