🎧 #199: How QuadReal Owns the Network Across 60 Buildings to Centralize Ops and Harden OT
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Episode 199 is a conversation with Brad Bonavida from Nexus Labs and Andres Rodriguez from QuadReal.
Summary
This episode explores how QuadReal Property Group is centralizing operations across a growing portfolio of connected buildings by owning the network infrastructure behind them. Andy Rodriguez shares how this strategy improves operational efficiency, strengthens OT cybersecurity, and enables teams to manage more buildings with fewer on-site resources. The conversation takes a deep dive into QuadReal’s IMMIX multifamily property, where integrated systems, from smart locks and leak detection to metering and access control, are transforming both operations and the resident experience. They also discuss the tradeoffs of owning the network, vendor accountability, and what it takes to preserve connected building outcomes through design, construction, and commissioning. It’s a practical look at how a converged network strategy can become the foundation for smarter, more resilient building operations.
Mentions and Links
- Join us at NexusCon: https://www.nexuslabs.online/nexuscon-2026
- Link to Andre’s NexusCon 2025 presentation (pro members only)
- Demo stage application
- QuadReal Passive Optical Network Podcast
Highlights
Introduction (0:00)
At the Nexus (1:49)
Rapid fire context-setting (6:10)
The conviction (9:47)
The accountability problem (15:13)
The multifamily story: IMMIX (19:00)
Privacy, Security, & Cyber (31:18)
Carve Outs (41:34)
Music credits: There Is A Reality by Common Tiger—licensed under an Music Vine Limited Pro Standard License ID: S800157-16073.
Full transcript
Note: transcript was created using an imperfect machine learning tool and lightly edited by a human (so you can get the gist). Please forgive errors!
Brad Bonavida: [00:00:00] Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Nexus Podcast, where we talk about connected buildings and the playbooks behind them. This episode is for facility managers, data and integration nerds, and OT cybersecurity specialists who are focused on improving operational efficiency, tenant satisfaction, mitigating cybersecurity risks, specifically in multifamily buildings.
Um, today we are digging into QuadReal's converged network strategy, and we have some specific multifamily apartment challenges that we're gonna cover within that. Uh, this matters for fa- facility teams because you're likely dealing with maintenance personnel having to manage more square footage per individual than ever before.
And there's ways people are fighting this problem with connected building solutions. And it doesn't just stop there. This shows up for construction management and project delivery teams trying to make connected buildings outcomes survive the design and construction phase One quick note, if you're trying to stay on top of the space without wading through the vendor noise, we write a short newsletter.
It comes out every other week. It's called "The Connected Buildings Briefing." It's about [00:01:00] five minutes to read, and it breaks down everything that is worth paying attention to in the space. It's read by over 9,000 people. You can grab a link to that in the show notes if you're not signed up for it. My name is Brad Bonavita.
I'm the head of product at Nexus Labs, and I am joined today by Andy Rodriguez, who is the director of building connectivity at QuadReal. Andy, how are you doing today?
Andres Rodriguez: Hey, I'm doing well, Brad. How are you?
Brad Bonavida: Doing great. I'm excited that you're here. Uh, we're gonna get into QuadReal's operational efficiency journey.
We're gonna talk about some specific examples from Imix Apart-- Imix? Uh, Imix, right? You told me before we started on this. Imix. Yeah. Imix. It is Imix. Imix apartment buildings that, that you guys are owners of, and then we're actually gonna get into some OT cybersecurity related stuff towards the end because, uh, that sounds like that's your specialty and I wanna dig into that.
Um, so- Sure ... we're gonna do all that. First, we're gonna do a quick At the Nexus which is just, uh, updates from what's going on at Nexus Labs. Um, if you're listening to this and you're a longtime listener, we've been missing for, like, three weeks, so sorry we've been a little delayed. Um, if you do [00:02:00]know us well, you know that we are in the trenches of Nexus Con planning right now.
Like, all the hard stuff, it goes on, you know, the two months before. So just a couple of updates to keep the audience in tune with what's, you know, coming out with Nexus Con. Um, well, if you're brand new to this, Nexus Con is our annual in-person conference, October 5th through 7th at the Department in Hudson's in Detroit, Michigan.
This is the third year we're putting it on. Um, on our website, the agenda is now live, which is really cool, and it's got probably 80 to 90% of the details in there now. One thing that's really cool that we did this year is that we're really trying to get down to the different, um, the different roles that people have that come to the conference, and we kinda came up with seven, uh, main roles, and we made those roles tags within our agenda.
So if you go to our Nexus Con website and you click the filter button, you can see tags, and you can see which of those, uh, seven roles you identify closest with and filter for that, and it'll show you the exact path you should take at Nexus Con that's going to be best for you. So we're really trying to [00:03:00]cater to all sorts of different people and see how these different groups can connect with each other.
Second thing I'll point out is that we are- Um, into the development of some really cool tours with the city of Detroit and Bedrock in general. Um, so, uh, guests are gonna have an opportunity to RSVP for tours where, um, there's kind of two different styles of tours. There's a, uh, technical in the weeds tour where Bedrock is going to be talking about some of their-- They're gonna be, like, showing mechanical systems in their operating center.
Um, that one's gonna be pretty exclusive and just for a couple people. But we're also gonna have a more general tour with, uh, Rocket Tours that's gonna walk the city, show people the cool parts of Detroit, the history, talk about some of the buildings and the architecture, and they are gonna mix in some, um, you know, smart building and connected building information, too.
It's gonna be really sweet, so, um, take-- keep an eye out for that. Uh, attendees are gonna have an opportunity to join that. And then the last thing I'll say about Nexus Con is the demo stage. We released some information about the demo stage of how [00:04:00] it's completely elevated this year. It's on the main floor.
I won't go through everything we've said in the past. It's gonna be live-streamed, recorded, yada, yada. Gonna be amazing. Probably the best demo that most people have ever, um, had an opportu- best stage anybody's ever had an opportunity to present a demo on. Applications to be on the demo stage, if you're a technology vendor who wants to be there, are due August 14th.
So you basically have two weeks. Actually, after this comes out, you're gonna have a little less than two weeks, and, uh, we will put in the show notes the application that explains, uh, the information of exactly how to submit your application. So those are kind of three good updates. Andy is gonna be with us at Nexus Con.
So Andy, my first question to you is, what are you most looking forward to this year at Nexus Con?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah, I mean, it's, uh, the relationships or the new relationships, the new people to meet. Um, uh, you know, I spent a lot of time hanging out kind of in the foyer last year, and just, you know, I, I was just meeting people, just standing around, you know, hanging around the tables there, getting to know, you know, what they did, what kind of cool things they were up to.
Uh, you know, it seems like, you know, w-we're [00:05:00] all, we're all looking to find, uh, new ways to be, to be innovative, but also to, to serve, you know, either, either the clients or, or, or the stakeholders that, that, that we work with. So, so it's always, it's always cool to, to, you know, get a pulse on what's happening out there outside of your own bubble.
And, and for me, as a, as a Canadian, you know, the, the, the US, uh, the US firms, there's some pretty large firms that do some very cool things. So, um, I'm, I'm always keen to, to listen in on, on random conversations, but then obviously, you know, the, all the good stuff you guys put on as well.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. That's awesome.
I think you nailed it too. I think, um, like we real- when we, when we come in and we say educational first and non-salesy, what it does is it appr- it, it makes people come in with this very collaborative, focused mindset. You were talking about just meeting people and exchanging ideas in the foyer. Like, I hear that all the time, and I think it's because we set that precedent that, like, everybody is here to learn regardless of what stage you're at.
You're here to learn first. And so when people bring that mindset in, it's [00:06:00] pretty cool the connections people make. So if you haven't signed up, we'll put a link in the show notes to sign up as well, but we would love to see you there. Okay, so let's dig into actually talking about what Andy does, what QuadReal does, all those things.
Um, first let's start with some rapid fire context setting. So you have to be quick with your answers 'cause this is just setting the stage for people. But first, what is QuadReal and what is your role within the company?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Uh, um, yeah. So QuadReal's been around now officially for 10 years. Um, so we, uh, own, uh, operate, and develop real estate on behalf of BCI, who is our managing partner.
Um, so we have about 100 million, uh, Canadian, uh, in, in assets that we, um, you know, are either invested in or operate. Um, strong, strong presence in Canada, uh, but we also have a global presence, um, you know, facilities in the US, in the UK, in Australia. Um, uh, kind of all over the place. Um, but, but, but yeah, we, uh, as a group, uh, you know, are put in place to, to, to be fiduciaries for those funds, for that money, uh, for the [00:07:00] pensioners so that they have, um, you know, you know, a, a good, a good foundation, uh, to, to live off of when they retire.
Brad Bonavida: Nice. And what type of buildings are we talking about? 'Cause you guys do a couple different style of commercial buildings, right?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. I mean, uh, the ones that we'll talk about a lot today are commercial and residential. Well, specifically multifamily residential, but, but we're in-- we have our hands in, in a lot of different kinds of assets.
So industrial, um, retail assets, um, um, storage facilities, student housing. Um, we're involved, uh, in, on the investment side on data centers. We have a debt team, um, on the construction side. So yeah, we're, we're, we're in it in, in almost every facet, um, on the real estate side.
Brad Bonavida: Cool. And then your title, as I said, is Director of Building Connectivity.
Tell us a little bit about, like, what that means and what your goals are and what your team looks like.
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. So, uh, um, my role specifically is to help, um, that foundational, that network layer, the compute layer that our operational [00:08:00] technology runs on. So, um, uh, a lot of that is, is, is really, uh, an operational group within Canada.
Um, but we are, again, moving, moving more of our operations outside of Canada, but using that same blueprint. But, um, but really my role, uh, we have a couple people on my team that, that help, you know, on, to cover, uh, we'll, we'll say the Canadian landscape. But really my main clients or the clients that, uh, that, that I'm responsible to are the operators at the building.
Um, but they're also- Yeah ... you know, the teams, like the investment management teams here at QuadReal, right? Like, like why are we investing, you know, this much in a network? Um, you know, is it necessary? Why, why is that necessary? So- Right ... so yeah, there's, there's, there's a heavy part of my job that's, that's operations.
Um, but, but then there's also the, you know, um, you know, making sure that we're being responsible with, with what we're asking for.
Brad Bonavida: Okay. And then my last question, the context setting is you talked about the operators and that side of it. Who are those people? Are those [00:09:00] QuadReal employees typically or- Yeah
how do you guys do that?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. So, um, the people that I interact with the most are, will be your operations managers, supervisors, um, you know, kind of the, the, the boots on the ground. But then to that point as well, like they're also supported by other vendors like on the building automation side or CCTV or lighting control, right?
So there's conversations that we have with those folks as well. Um, you know, that, that, that side of the house changes very frequently. Um, so, so, you know, it's, it's a, it's a matter of just making sure that, you know, everybody's kind of talking the same language and, and has the same goal and, uh, uh, for the buildings that we operate.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Okay. Great. I think that gives kind of a good grasp of who QuadReal is. Um, in terms of who QuadReal is, like in, in a relationship to Nexus Labs, James Dice and Thano Lembrinos have been on the podcast together before, and I- we've used your guys' portfolio as an example in case studies multiple times, and I think that- [00:10:00] We just see it to be a very mature, uh, portfolio compared to a lot of other owners, which gives people an opportunity to learn how you got there.
And a big part of what you guys have done that I think, like, really defines your maturity is the centralization of data and operations that you've done. Um, in-- You, you presented at Nexus Con in 2025, and I took this quick quote that you said that the centralization that you guys have lets you command or quarterback from anywhere.
Um, so for the audience, kind of what do, what do you think of when you think of the centralization of QuadReal's operations and, like, what's kind of been the journey? Where did you start, and what have you gotten to?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Um, so the, the journey started, um, you know, probably about eight years ago or so when, um, you know, when we were looking to, to effectively, um, put in a new, new technology stack within one of our buildings.
Um, and, and the price tag that we got back was, you know, eye, eye-watering or, [00:11:00] um, to, to, to some of the folks. So, so they came back to, to us and were like, "Hey," like, "Should we be paying this?" Um, and you know, I mean, you know, to, to be, to be honest, it was, it was quite high, but at the same time, you know, sometimes you get what you pay for, right?
So, so we took that pri- we took that pricing back, uh, a-and thought to ourselves, "How can we go about this in a way that best serves the business for a long, long term," right? So that's really how the journey started. Um, you know, we, we made some decisions, um, you know, based on our conviction, uh, based on our experience.
Um, at the time, you know, um, y- we were quite young as a, a, as a, as a group, I'll say, from a, from an operating perspective, but we had the chops from either a construction or IT or mechanical or electrical background, so we kinda knew what we were gonna get our, get ourselves into. So, so yeah, that really led, again, to us understanding, you know, what that would look like to, to even roll this out.
And then from that [00:12:00] came a sh- a whole ton of other outcomes like the centralized operation-
Brad Bonavida: Right ...
Andres Rodriguez: like the centralized network management that, that, you know, was, was, was understood, but at the same time we, we didn't know which partners we'd even need to be working with, uh- Yeah ... to be able to, to, to leverage that centralization.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. And I think it's important to, I- we're using the word centralization kind of in two different ways. I was thinking about this before we started. I wanna be clear to the audience of, like, how, like, so we're not confusing that word. So y- when you first were talking about centralization, you're talking about the specific centralization of Quadrail's data.
So you guys use c-a converged passive optical network, which I think I can show some links to other, other, um, pieces of content where we've talked to you guys about that. But that converged network brings data from a bunch of places centralized into one thing. And then when you centralize again, and I think we're gonna dive a little bit into this as one of the outcomes that's on top of that network, [00:13:00] is that you are centralizing your operations team.
A common term is an ROC or a remote operations center, where people are physically sitting in one centralized location and can see, like, everything that's happening across Quadrail buildings so you can be more efficient to, like, tackle issues and do things right. Do you agree with the split there of the word centralization?
Does that make sense with how you guys are doing it?
Andres Rodriguez: For sure. Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, yeah, I think, I think you, you nailed it, Brad. Right? There was, there was a piece to centralize Everything that happened within a building, right? Um, uh, and, and, and that, that can be, you know, anywhere from like 200,000 square feet to two million square feet, right?
There's, there, the ce-central, you know, there, there's a lot to centralize no matter kind of what, what kind of building size you're talking about. But then thereafter, right, if you have a portfolio of buildings, then there's, you know, understanding, you know, what, what you can do from that ROC or we call it B- BOC, um-
Brad Bonavida: Okay
Andres Rodriguez: um, building operation center. But, but yeah, there, there, there's then, [00:14:00] there's the opportunity to have, you know, your more, your most senior staff or staff, or your most specific staff look at problems on a grand scale, right? Where you're not just looking at, you know, one or two buildings, you're looking at the portfolio, right?
Yeah. So that's the other centralization piece that you touched on there.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Yeah. And, and when they do that, they can, they can make smart, scalable decisions across multiple like, bit like, um, there's an issue in building A and we address that. Let's make sure that that same issue isn't going to be a problem in buildings B through Z because we have the control to just look ac- the other side of the screen here and make the change, right?
Andres Rodriguez: For sure. Yeah. And we're- Cool ... we're regionally, we're regionally distributed in Canada in, in really kind of four, well, three main cities, you know, some auxiliary cities as well. But, but being able to kinda understand that like, oh, hey, like the temperature in the West Coast is gonna be extremely high today.
Like let's start to cool all those buildings down a little early, right? Like that's, you know, kind of one of those, one of those [00:15:00] outcomes, right? Of having that regional understanding of what's happening in different places.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Cool. Okay. One , this is kind of a nuanced question, but I think it's important because it, I'm, I'm segueing a bit, but this comes up in our audience a lot, is that, um, you said, you said one of the, one of the issues that you brought up that, or challenges I should say, that you brought up during your Nexus Con presentation is that, um, you guys own the network and so it changes your relationship with vendors sometimes.
And we talk a lot here about, uh, you know, the phrase vendor lock-in, where it's like, well, if your, if your vendors own all of your assets and your network and your systems, then you don't have that much control of it. You guys have gone so far into being autonomous for that, that I, I see this other challenge that mature building owners face where your vendors are saying, "Well, you guys own all this, so you're responsible for like adjustments, changes."
Like, can you sp- is that, is that a, like is, has it gone that far over to the spectrum that now it's like changing your contractual obligations or the contracts that you're writing [00:16:00] with your vendors because you're owning more of this than they are?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. That's a, that's, that's a great, that's a great point.
Um, so what we found is, are there challenges? You know, there certainly are. But, but at the same time, you know, I think, um, you know, there, there's, there's vendor partners that we, you know, have good relationships with, and they understand that, you know, we have a pretty big technical bench that, um, you know, is you know, isn't, isn't just, you know, blowing hot air, right?
Like we're, w- what we're doing is, is we're using technologies that are, you know, known, very well known in, you know, we'll say the IT industry or the networking industry. Um, and we have experts as well that know how to operate, you know, in the building automation space and, you know, that's their, that's their bread and butter.
So, so what I'm, what I'm trying to, I guess, get to here is that the vendor community, I think, understands that from, from Quadrail's perspective, there's certain standards that we are now kind of dictating and, and, and we don't wanna deviate from, right? And, you know, [00:17:00] having a vendor push back is It happens and it, and it's fine, right?
Like, we're, we're not, um, you know, we, we try to be, you know, laying a foundation that we know is going to be, um, something that, that is gonna be in place for the long haul, right? Like, we are long-term investors, so what we're doing is we're putting kind of our money where our mouth is to a certain extent, um, with, with putting in this, you know, good technology and having people, you know, w- work in that environment.
Um, s- you're gonna have to take your lumps every now and then from a vendor being like- Yeah ... you know, "Why are you doing it this way?" But that's, that, that's a fight that, that's worth fighting because we know that our convictions are strong, you know- Yeah ... in, in, in the, in the foundation that we're building.
So we're, we're, we're okay there. But yeah, from a contractual standpoint, um, you know, we haven't r- we haven't really had to like, you know, let's say rewrite the book entirely. But from a construction standpoint, you know, we have some really smart people that are now inserting very specific language in divisional specifications that are, uh, you know, the vendor community needs to [00:18:00]adhere to, otherwise, you know, you can't be part of the bid, right?
Nice. So, so I mean, I think that's, that's where we're, um, perhaps starting to carve out something a little bit different here, right? Where, where we're dictating the terms of how people kind of operate within our buildings or how they construct things in our building. Um, so, so that, that is really kind of...
It, it, it's almost, you know, whittling out the people that don't wanna, you know, work, work by those confines or work in the, in that construct. Um, but, but it really helps us deliver the way we wanna deliver.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Cool. That's awesome. It's, it's such an evolution from, like, the vendor owns control, to you own control, to, like, really taking that.
And we'll be talking, uh, in the construction track at Nexus Con a lot about the idea that you just said of, like, how to put into specifications and contracts early on what you're expecting from these vendors so that these connected building outcomes actually survive through the design and construction and into, you know, what the occupants are actually gonna see.
For sure. Okay, um, [00:19:00] so I think it's always better to... Or it's easier for the audience to understand a lot of the things we talk about if we ground it in a real story, which is why we're gonna go back to a little bit of, you know, the... Well, specifically to the building that you were talking about at Nexus Con.
So tell us about, it's a, it's a multifamily apartment. K- kinda tell us the story of, I th- I guess starting kind of at how you acquired this quickly. Like, what, what did this look like for you guys to get this apartment?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah, I mean, I, I, you know, I wish I was in some of those rooms when they were, you know, making the deal, right?
But, uh, but as far as, uh, as far as I know, there was a, a development, uh, a condo development, um, you know, uh, i- in Toronto that, uh, that unfortunately, um, y- you know, wasn't going to be, um- W- wasn't gonna pan out, you know, from, from the, you know, from the financial sense. Um, you know, somebody decided, "Hey, it's time to cut our losses here and, a- a- and, and move on from this project."
So, you know, there was a distressed, a distressed sale of sorts. Uh, Quadra was able to, to then acquire the prope- [00:20:00] uh, acquire the property. Um, and it was early enough in the sta- i- in the stage where it, it was, it was likely, you know, probably the pouring of concrete, so nothing, nothing was fully baked in terms of, you know, what type of controls, access control system was gonna be in there, what kind of building automation system.
So, so it w- it was early enough that we could, uh, you know, pivot to, to the strategy that we had already adopted, uh, at that point, right? The, I believe this was 2019 that we, that we acquired this property, and at that point, we had already started down this, uh, down this road of the converged building network at most of our commercial assets.
So, so it was one of the, one of the earlier, we'll say, residential properties, but now all of our residential properties fall under the same kinda standard practice. So- Okay ... so we were able to get in there early enough
Brad Bonavida: So you kind of already had the, the playbook for how you wanted to write the specifications to get it built the way that it was because you'd done this at least once before?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. We had, we [00:21:00] had the, we had the commercial side, I would say fairly well understood, right? But, but we were pretty, pretty early in the, in, in the residential, um... In, in, on the residential side, we had only d- we had only really done one other building at that point with that same kind of strategy.
Brad Bonavida: Okay.
And y- so you presented about this, uh, with Saruf from Code Labs, who's one of your, you know, technology vendor partners through this all. Yep. He, he mentioned the integrations that you guys have going in this building, and he said link sensors... or leak sensors, building automation system, metering occupancy sensors, smart door locks, smart lockers, CCTV access control, all in one platform.
Is that in the specification right at the beginning that all of those different systems are gonna be integrated together from the get-go?
Andres Rodriguez: Not, not, not in the specification. So when we, when we go to tender to, uh, specify a specific component or operational technology within the building, it needs to be open, right?
So it needs to be able to have some kind of open API [00:22:00] or be able to, uh, for us to be able to, uh, actually interface with that controller or with that front end to b- then be able to pull that data, um, y- from, from it, and that's where we use, you know, you know, integrators like Code, right? Who u- who understand, uh, very well which are the, the types of building systems that are actually allowing for that.
So, so at, so at that point, we're adding into the specifications the systems, again, per operational technology set, like all the ones that you mentioned before- Mm-hmm ... that are open. So, so from a, from a very, you know, baseline standpoint, they need to be... They can't just be, um, you know, kind of, we like to call it like the vendor lock-in, right?
Yeah. We can't have just like company A say, "Hey, you need to use, you know, our front end." Well, you typically use the front end anyways, but like it will only work with this license and nothing else kind of thing. Like that's what we try to avoid, right? Yeah. We try to avoid that vendor lock-in. Gotcha. But during the specification phase, it just needs to be open, and then we should be able to integrate with it.
I see. So then you can get all the... All, all, everything can then just tie in afterwards.
Brad Bonavida: [00:23:00] So you got all these open systems that you procure through, you know, the contractors and all that stuff. Do, do you have an MSI who's overseeing that integration, or is CODE basically acting as that MSI who is going to actually make sure that the AS and metering know how to communicate with one another, for example?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. And, um, th- that one is, uh, you know, we'll probably have to, we'd probably have to bring in somebody very specific from our team to answer that better than I can. But from a high level, um, it's, it's really dependent on the building size and kind of- Mm-hmm ... the budget that h- that is allocated to, to the types of systems that, that need to integrate, right?
So from a, f- from this perspective, or as far as I know, uh, at IMX, we just use, used CODE as the MSI.
Brad Bonavida: Okay. Cool. And then going, like picturing that your, your outcome is all these systems communicating effectively together, which gets all the way up to your, your BOC where, you know, people can see all this data in one place What is-- can you speak at all for the commissioning process of that in terms of, like, [00:24:00] people are saying they're done.
Is there specific checks you're doing to make sure that these integrations happened effectively with a commissioning agent or with CODE or something like that?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Um, what, what I can, what I can mention is that w- uh, with having a, a, um, integrated building management platform like CODE, we are then able to see all devices and, and we can see those data points or set points that are associated to those devices.
So when you're going through a building floor by floor, although, you know, the commissioning agent may, you know, let's, let's just say to throw a number out there, when they're in- going into the field and conducting their business, they're completing maybe, let's say, 70 or 80% of their commissioning and then just assuming, "Hey, everything else is going fine.
We should be good." Lever- leveraging the use of CODE, being able to, again, go through floor by floor, have somebody- Yeah ... you know, very smart on the other end understand everything that needs to show up, um, from, from a visual perspective and, and can actually see data coming into that [00:25:00] controller or that device and being able to, you know, administer or change a set point.
There's-- that therein is the 100% commissioning, right? Gotcha. Or being able to then understand, "Hey, this building is fully functional, you know, the way it should be." So, so although, um, again, a commis- a commissioning agent or a per- specific vendor may not be going through that, you know, you know, end to end, you know, we then leverage our tools to be able to validate that.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Okay, cool. And let's, let's kind of talk about some of the, like, specifics of the multifamily, which I think is sometimes unique to other building types. Um, you mentioned that you have, uh, suite-level metering i- in-- so every single, every single unit, as I understand it, has its own electrical and water metering.
Andres Rodriguez: Yep.
Brad Bonavida: How, how did, how did you justify doing that? Like, what-- you know, that's like, that's an expensive cost. Is that typical or is that pretty unique to be able to offer that?
Andres Rodriguez: [00:26:00] Um, now, now it's, it's, it's, it from, it's a standard, right? Like it's, it, it, it's something that we're doing now at all of our suites.
Now that's probably, uh, that's, that's probably, um, one of those things that's kind of more common sense than anything else, right? And w- and what I mean by that is, um, you know, if you have, uh, if you have a building and if for whatever reason, you know, I, I like to... Let's say I like to take really long showers and the person next to me doesn't, right?
If there's no metering strategy- Yeah ... in place, we're both paying, you know, 50 bucks a month for water even though I'm the, you know, the water hog. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So having that suite by suite, um, you know, measure is, is now fair, right? Yeah. So now we, now we can't have those complaints that come back to us about their, the cost of their water because, hey, every drop is being, is being measured.
Um- Yeah ... and that also is something that, you know, I think a lot of people these days, you know, we're, we live in an, in, in an economy that is, you know, things are getting a little bit more, more expensive. When you see a bill tied to like how much water you're consuming yourself, sometimes that makes you think, "Hey, like, [00:27:00] you know, maybe I should, you know, tone it down a bit," um, you know, so because I'm spending way too much on water, you know, based on my budget, right?
As, as another example, right? So, um, and then lastly, um, you know, one of those things that, where it helps, and we talked about leak detection, which, you know, knock on wood, we haven't had any triggers lately. But on the metering side of the house, we've already discovered that there's been, you know, um, let's say toilet valves that, that are leaking water or faucets that are leaky.
So when somebody's consuming much more water, you know, this month than they did the previous three months, they come back to us. They're like, "Hey, like I think something is wrong with this meter." The meter's w- working perfectly fine. They're just consuming more water because of a leak that's, you know, actually getting funneled into the proper plumbing system, right?
But now we can, now we can fix things, you know, like a leaky faucet before it becomes a larger problem, right? Yeah. Based on those meters. So, so yeah, there's... It is, it is expensive for sure but, but, you know, from a long-term perspective, y- you know, it, it makes [00:28:00] sense.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. I, I mean, you're effectively saying that you're using those meters as condition-based maintenance tools because they're giving you enough data to do that.
And, and yeah, I guess it's a good point that like, of course it's standard so that you're not paying more . Like you, you brought up the, the shower example. I was thinking like if your next door neighbor's mining, you know, crypto on the side- ... and, and sh- you're not, you don't wanna pay that electrical. For sure.
But what I, what you said in the, um, what you said in the presentation, or it might have been Saruf who said that, that I thought was interesting is obviously you've got that metering, but you, it's so, um- The data's so accessible and exposed that sometimes you're even alerting, uh, tenants beforehand. Like, "Hey, you've-- you're using way more than you used last, you know, month.
Is something going on? Do you need to check that you didn't like, you know, leave something on or something like that?" Right? Right. And that's a pretty, that's a pretty good, like, tenant experience, um, thing for those people to have within the apartment.
Andres Rodriguez: For sure. Yeah. It's, it's, it's-- It can be-- For, for some it can [00:29:00] be a peace of mind thing, right?
And, and, and knowing that, you know, they, they feel valued, right? Um, because some- someone's letting them know before they get a, you know, painful bill
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. The other, uh, last piece of tech that's kind of tenant or multi-family related that I wanted to talk about is access control just for a second, because I think that we talk to a lot of, uh, you know, office commercial, uh, building owners, and they're actually definitely a step behind multi-family residential when it comes to the access control systems that they have because it's so important to this work.
So, uh, I'm not familiar with ButterflyMX, but that's who it sounds like you guys used, and, and they're-- it's, it's a little bit advanced. You don't-- It's not just fob-based, but it's mobile-based or something, right?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Yeah, no, it's, um... So we have a, we have a, a team, um, or th-there's a group within our group that deals specifically with the mobile applications and, um, uh, we've had very good success, um, at, uh, at that, uh, at that team developing, you know, something that, [00:30:00] that's, that's quite useful to the tenants and now can integrate with a tool set like ButterflyMX, right?
So, so now you have the ability to basically do everything that you would normally do, let's say, as a, uh, uh, uh, as a user of a building, like being able to access the building, you know, with your phone, um, being able to get into certain areas like, you know, let, let's say the, the bike facility or being able to open, you know, your garage door.
Um, you know, normal things, but now you can do things kind of over and above what you might normally think you can do at a residential building, right? You have a, a, a guest that, that's coming in that day, right? Or you have, you know, your friends coming in that day. Now you can give them a pass ahead of time.
Or if the Amazon guy is coming to, to deliver your package, um, you know, when he, when he presses the button for you to actually get into the building, you can tell him, you know, exactly where to leave it or be like, "Hey, can you, can you wait, you know, a minute? I'll be down there." Al-although I don't know how, how likely he is to wait.
But anyways, it's, it's one of those things where now yourself as a [00:31:00]tenant, you know, don't have to be asking the concierge or the maintenance person to do something. You can do that all from, you know, the power of your own phone.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Cool. Okay. That, that's-- I think that's a pretty good setting the stage for what's unique about this building, and, and what we've talked about so far has been that, that second definition of centralized we gave, where it's kind of like you centralized operations in a way that makes this building run efficient.
So going back to your converged network, your centralization as a place to group in data, we were talking before we started here that your job is actually a lot more specific on the, the o-operational technology, priv-privacy, security, cyber side. So maybe just start with like bringing that now in as another piece of the centralization.
Was it more that, um, once you were centralized with your data, you were able to be more cyber effective, cybersecurity effective, or once you wanted to be cy-- you [00:32:00] wanted to be more cybersecurity effective, so you did centralize your data as one of those ways to do that?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Um, we, uh, you know, a- again, for the benefits of, of converging, um, you know, our buildings, we were, we were obviously able to now be able to see, at the very least, uh, you know, everything that passes through, uh, you know, the network appliances, the network devices that are at those buildings, right?
So, um, now you have all this information, but how do you even un- unearth all of that, right? It's one thing to have traffic passing through your network, but how do you, how do you inspect, um, you know, use, use that inspection to then catalog, and then after you catalog, like, like what are you doing with that data, right?
So, so from that, from that converged building network platform, we had a means to have, um, you, you know, access to all the data. Um, we, we, we tried, you know, a, a few different things where it came to, um, uh, doing, doing really in-depth [00:33:00] dis- device discovery, but we found it pretty tricky on, uh, especially on the operations technology side to, to, to leverage, let's say, IT types of tool sets to be able to understand what was there because, you know, they didn't really speak the BACnet language or Modbus or, you know, all of those, you know, protocols that are, that are very unique to a, to a building stack.
So we, we finally, after, you know, a lot of tried and tested, um, uh, POCs landed on Armis. Um, so we, we then deployed at, at a large subset, more than half of the sites, um, uh, you know, of the, of the, sorry, of the 60 that are, that we have converged, um, and brought that appliance in to now really kind of unearth, you know, all of the infor- all of the, sorry, the devices that are in our operational stack, but then also categorize, um- Yeah
you know, out of the box, you know, those vulnerability scores. Um, and really start to help us now [00:34:00] Differ-- not differentiate, but now how to prioritize, you know, what should we be doing? You know, what is like the red flag or the red flags, and how do we even do something about that, right? Not to say that you don't do anything with the yellow flags, but- Yeah
you know, what we're trying to do here is obviously centralize, um, you know, a, a means to, to all that information from a cyber perspective, from a posture perspective, and, and, and then, and then start to attack that, you know, bit by bit. Um, and you know, we d- like probably, probably some other institutional investors, you know, we, we, we have, uh, buildings that operate on specific, um, uh, s- uh, operational stacks, right?
Like a, like a, you know, like a Johnson controller, like a Distech, right? So, you know, if there's a problem that's arising, you know, in, in a building, you know, there's probably a subset of buildings that are probably under that same kind of umbrella, right? Mm-hmm. So now being able to leverage, you know, a, a contractor or a [00:35:00] vendor to do, you know, that same thing at five buildings, right?
Yeah. So we're not just kind of piecemealing this all over the place, right? We're, we're having a, a, a better strategy of, you know, let, let's hit, let's hit these targets, but like, let's hit the, the ones that are the biggest, right?
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Let's, let's break down that part just a little bit. And I'm sure there's a lot of different, um, I'm sure it goes a lot of different ways, but help me with an example of like, so Armis is scanning for you guys and you're getting these green, yellow, reds, and you see all these reds and it's like a controller or a sensor or something, and you're like Going to the contractor and showing them that installed that and like, "Hey, fix this," or patch this, or like how does that communication chain usually go to get it fixed?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. It's, it, it, it can be tricky. Um, you know, it's, it, it's a, it's a lot more difficult in a lot of cases to hit individual controllers. It's, it's tough to just like, let's say, push once and boom, like everything's upgraded.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah.
Andres Rodriguez: Right? That, that's, that's not typically how it works. So what we try to do, right, is understand the problem as, as, [00:36:00] as best we can, and protect and, and make some kind of compensating control, um, in the interim, right?
To continue, 'cause y- we have to keep the lights on, right? Like no matter what, you know, it's all about availability. Yeah. It's all, it's all about being able to, to, to make sure that, you know, our, the people that are using the building can still use the building, right? But how do we mitigate, you know, what can be a pretty big red flag, continue to operate until that vendor can come in and fix this problem on a big scale.
So- Mm-hmm ... so what we'll, what you'll typically find is we'll find a, a pr- a pr- a pretty big problem. We'll figure out a way to, let's say, isolate or quarantine that while still maintaining operation until we can bring somebody in to then do, do the, um, you know, the work required to, to get us back on our feet into a, a, a better operational state.
Brad Bonavida: Nice. That's great. I- we've made it this far into a conversation about OT cybersecurity without saying AI, which is crazy. And I don't know if- ... I don't know if we even have time to open up that can of [00:37:00] worms, but we will, uh, we're, we have a, you know, cybersecurity related, uh, session at Nexus Con, which I need to talk to you about maybe after the podcast or something, 'cause I think, you know, maybe you should be involved in that.
But I, we, we definitely wanna bring that question into this as well. That's kind of like, okay, you're, you s- you have this ability to scan if you actually have an OT networking, a network monitoring, uh, solution like Armis or someone else, and you have these green, yellow, red, but now you've got this orthogonal AI of like either to help you or to hurt you and how people are thinking about that.
We're gonna be talking about that with a lot of building owners. So, um, let's, let's, uh, save that piece and if you wanna hear what Andy has to say about it, you gotta hear what he has to say about it at Nexus Con. So, uh, let's just close... Let, we'll, we'll go do carve-outs, but before we do carve-outs, just kind of like you guys are a very mature building owner organization, so I, I'd love for you to try to summarize just a little bit of actionable advice for somebody who might not be as far as QuadReal.
If you were talking to somebody who, you know, had more [00:38:00] than 20 buildings and no converged network at all, and was just like starting to toy with this idea of like, "Yeah, we want a central operations team. We want the ability to, you know, uh, protect our devices from cybersecurity threats," what's kinda like the first place that they should start to go?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Uh, I, I would say, you know, you, you really need to understand, um, from, let's say, almost at the highest level possible, like from like, let's say the board level, um, you know, things that they're concerned about, right? Like we... Maybe it, maybe because of just the way QuadReal is, we have a very interested board in making sure that we're, you know, doing the right things, um, even from a cyber perspective to the building level.
So, you know, I think, you think that conversation needs to happen, you know, at the C level or, or higher, right? Um- Business
Brad Bonavida: case.
Andres Rodriguez: Right. Yeah. Like, like you need, you need to make sure that like, it is, it is understood the kind of impacts that can [00:39:00] happen, um, when you have... When you don't have a res- either re- the resiliency to withstand not even a cyber attack.
Let's say you have a controller that goes offline, like what is your building continuity plan? Like, how are you- Mm-hmm ... making sure that people can still use the facility, right? So, so I think you need to make sure that you're painting this picture that like, um, you know, if, you know, something breaks, like how are we recovering, right?
I think that will help you, um, you know, navigate the, the capital that's then required because as, as you're, as everyone's aware, right, doing anything at one building can be expensive. Doing it at 20, that's a big ask, right? That's- Yeah ... that, that's always gonna be a big ask. Um, so, you know, understanding, you know, what perhaps is the, the long-term strategy for those groups of assets, right?
You know, maybe of those 20, you're only really gonna wanna hold on to 10 of them really long term, right? So, you know, you, you're, you're gonna wanna really understand, [00:40:00] wanna understand where you're investing, where you're putting, and not only the capital, but that time as well, right? Yeah. Um, and it's also really important, I think, fundamentally to make sure that the users are understanding, you know, the dos and don'ts.
Um, we have a very good cyber team here as well that does very regular campaigns, um, to, to educate our, our, our teams, right? To, to, to make sure they know, um, you know, what is the right thing to do, what's the wrong thing to do. Um, so that, that's super helpful as well where it comes, where it comes to cyber.
But, but, um, but yeah, um, you know, it, it's, it's one of the... It's, uh... That's a tough, it's a tough one to answer, but, but I would say that, that we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today without that buy-in from the top, right? Without that- Yeah ... without that, that governance layer- Helping us understand what the business really wants, 'cause then we could, then we could, you know, shoot from, start shooting from the hip and being like, "Okay, well, you [00:41:00] want, you want, you know, A through B out- A through, sorry, E outcomes, we need to do all, all of these things to be able to satisfy that."
Brad Bonavida: Yep. Yep. It, that's a fantastic answer. It really reminds me of the, um, keynote from Nexus Con last year when we had the Dune kind of, um, table that showed at the bottom, it's like technologies that you can use, and it's like the people who are using those to get jobs done. But at the very top, it's what are the business level outcomes that are achieved through this through path of doing these things.
Hmm. Yeah. So it's a, it's a good answer that we hear all the time. So, um, yeah, I think it's definitely the right answer. Okay. Let's end quickly with carve-outs of, you know, some more interesting personal stuff about ourselves. I'll go first with mine. Uh, I I am a, uh, ex-baseball player, but now I'm old, so I play men's softball.
And, um- ... uh, la- so I've been playing in this men's softball league in the town I live in now for three years, and I have never won a softball game before for three years. And I, I accredit [00:42:00] that to two things. I'm not, I'm not a, I'm a pretty good softball player. Number one, this league has some outstanding teams, and number two, I have a bunch of friends on the team who've never even put a glove on before, but we still have fun with it.
So it's a long time to go without winning a single softball game. We won last night, night, 20 to 19 in the last game of the season. And it's the first softball game I've won in three years. Uh, I was so happy. It was the best, best night of my life to win. I, I think it was like, I counted, it was 700 days I went without winning a softball game.
So a big, big night for me in my very, very amateur softball career. What about you, Andy? What do you got for us?
Andres Rodriguez: Those, those poor pitchers, those ERAs are just-
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, that's men's softball for you. Lots of double digit scores.
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, no, I was, I was, I was thinking about what I, what I could, what I could bring up on the, on the carve-outs and, and honestly, um, you know, I j- I just wanna, you know, I guess close it off with, with being grateful.
And, um, you know, this has been, for me, it's been a pretty, pretty tough year. You know, personally, a lot of kind of [00:43:00] things have been a bit rough this year, but, you know, I'm very grateful for the support that I have from my family, from my wife. Um, even though my kids probably aren't really supporting me, they, they, they do kind of make me feel, you know, grateful that the, that, that I am a dad and I'm able to spend time with them.
Um, and yeah, I mean, I, I'm very grateful that I'm able to work at QuadReal, have a, have an awesome, uh, awesome team that I work with. My boss is great. Um, you know, the company treats you very well. Uh, and I'm grateful to be able to participate in things like this, right? To be able to be a part of a, like, a real estate community that I think is really one that's open, uh, a- and willing to share and, you know, being able to go to Nexus Con and, and, and, and keep that grateful spirit up is, uh, you know, something that I'm looking forward to.
Just being grateful for You know, the life I have and, and, and, uh, and, and being able to share it with others
Brad Bonavida: That, that might be one of my favorite carve-outs I've ever heard. That's fantastic, and I think a message [00:44:00] that, um, isn't said enough. So thank you. That was really, really awesome. All right, well, great talking to you, Andy.
Looking forward to seeing you in October. Um, appreciate it
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Episode 199 is a conversation with Brad Bonavida from Nexus Labs and Andres Rodriguez from QuadReal.
Summary
This episode explores how QuadReal Property Group is centralizing operations across a growing portfolio of connected buildings by owning the network infrastructure behind them. Andy Rodriguez shares how this strategy improves operational efficiency, strengthens OT cybersecurity, and enables teams to manage more buildings with fewer on-site resources. The conversation takes a deep dive into QuadReal’s IMMIX multifamily property, where integrated systems, from smart locks and leak detection to metering and access control, are transforming both operations and the resident experience. They also discuss the tradeoffs of owning the network, vendor accountability, and what it takes to preserve connected building outcomes through design, construction, and commissioning. It’s a practical look at how a converged network strategy can become the foundation for smarter, more resilient building operations.
Mentions and Links
- Join us at NexusCon: https://www.nexuslabs.online/nexuscon-2026
- Link to Andre’s NexusCon 2025 presentation (pro members only)
- Demo stage application
- QuadReal Passive Optical Network Podcast
Highlights
Introduction (0:00)
At the Nexus (1:49)
Rapid fire context-setting (6:10)
The conviction (9:47)
The accountability problem (15:13)
The multifamily story: IMMIX (19:00)
Privacy, Security, & Cyber (31:18)
Carve Outs (41:34)
Music credits: There Is A Reality by Common Tiger—licensed under an Music Vine Limited Pro Standard License ID: S800157-16073.
Full transcript
Note: transcript was created using an imperfect machine learning tool and lightly edited by a human (so you can get the gist). Please forgive errors!
Brad Bonavida: [00:00:00] Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Nexus Podcast, where we talk about connected buildings and the playbooks behind them. This episode is for facility managers, data and integration nerds, and OT cybersecurity specialists who are focused on improving operational efficiency, tenant satisfaction, mitigating cybersecurity risks, specifically in multifamily buildings.
Um, today we are digging into QuadReal's converged network strategy, and we have some specific multifamily apartment challenges that we're gonna cover within that. Uh, this matters for fa- facility teams because you're likely dealing with maintenance personnel having to manage more square footage per individual than ever before.
And there's ways people are fighting this problem with connected building solutions. And it doesn't just stop there. This shows up for construction management and project delivery teams trying to make connected buildings outcomes survive the design and construction phase One quick note, if you're trying to stay on top of the space without wading through the vendor noise, we write a short newsletter.
It comes out every other week. It's called "The Connected Buildings Briefing." It's about [00:01:00] five minutes to read, and it breaks down everything that is worth paying attention to in the space. It's read by over 9,000 people. You can grab a link to that in the show notes if you're not signed up for it. My name is Brad Bonavita.
I'm the head of product at Nexus Labs, and I am joined today by Andy Rodriguez, who is the director of building connectivity at QuadReal. Andy, how are you doing today?
Andres Rodriguez: Hey, I'm doing well, Brad. How are you?
Brad Bonavida: Doing great. I'm excited that you're here. Uh, we're gonna get into QuadReal's operational efficiency journey.
We're gonna talk about some specific examples from Imix Apart-- Imix? Uh, Imix, right? You told me before we started on this. Imix. Yeah. Imix. It is Imix. Imix apartment buildings that, that you guys are owners of, and then we're actually gonna get into some OT cybersecurity related stuff towards the end because, uh, that sounds like that's your specialty and I wanna dig into that.
Um, so- Sure ... we're gonna do all that. First, we're gonna do a quick At the Nexus which is just, uh, updates from what's going on at Nexus Labs. Um, if you're listening to this and you're a longtime listener, we've been missing for, like, three weeks, so sorry we've been a little delayed. Um, if you do [00:02:00]know us well, you know that we are in the trenches of Nexus Con planning right now.
Like, all the hard stuff, it goes on, you know, the two months before. So just a couple of updates to keep the audience in tune with what's, you know, coming out with Nexus Con. Um, well, if you're brand new to this, Nexus Con is our annual in-person conference, October 5th through 7th at the Department in Hudson's in Detroit, Michigan.
This is the third year we're putting it on. Um, on our website, the agenda is now live, which is really cool, and it's got probably 80 to 90% of the details in there now. One thing that's really cool that we did this year is that we're really trying to get down to the different, um, the different roles that people have that come to the conference, and we kinda came up with seven, uh, main roles, and we made those roles tags within our agenda.
So if you go to our Nexus Con website and you click the filter button, you can see tags, and you can see which of those, uh, seven roles you identify closest with and filter for that, and it'll show you the exact path you should take at Nexus Con that's going to be best for you. So we're really trying to [00:03:00]cater to all sorts of different people and see how these different groups can connect with each other.
Second thing I'll point out is that we are- Um, into the development of some really cool tours with the city of Detroit and Bedrock in general. Um, so, uh, guests are gonna have an opportunity to RSVP for tours where, um, there's kind of two different styles of tours. There's a, uh, technical in the weeds tour where Bedrock is going to be talking about some of their-- They're gonna be, like, showing mechanical systems in their operating center.
Um, that one's gonna be pretty exclusive and just for a couple people. But we're also gonna have a more general tour with, uh, Rocket Tours that's gonna walk the city, show people the cool parts of Detroit, the history, talk about some of the buildings and the architecture, and they are gonna mix in some, um, you know, smart building and connected building information, too.
It's gonna be really sweet, so, um, take-- keep an eye out for that. Uh, attendees are gonna have an opportunity to join that. And then the last thing I'll say about Nexus Con is the demo stage. We released some information about the demo stage of how [00:04:00] it's completely elevated this year. It's on the main floor.
I won't go through everything we've said in the past. It's gonna be live-streamed, recorded, yada, yada. Gonna be amazing. Probably the best demo that most people have ever, um, had an opportu- best stage anybody's ever had an opportunity to present a demo on. Applications to be on the demo stage, if you're a technology vendor who wants to be there, are due August 14th.
So you basically have two weeks. Actually, after this comes out, you're gonna have a little less than two weeks, and, uh, we will put in the show notes the application that explains, uh, the information of exactly how to submit your application. So those are kind of three good updates. Andy is gonna be with us at Nexus Con.
So Andy, my first question to you is, what are you most looking forward to this year at Nexus Con?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah, I mean, it's, uh, the relationships or the new relationships, the new people to meet. Um, uh, you know, I spent a lot of time hanging out kind of in the foyer last year, and just, you know, I, I was just meeting people, just standing around, you know, hanging around the tables there, getting to know, you know, what they did, what kind of cool things they were up to.
Uh, you know, it seems like, you know, w-we're [00:05:00] all, we're all looking to find, uh, new ways to be, to be innovative, but also to, to serve, you know, either, either the clients or, or, or the stakeholders that, that, that we work with. So, so it's always, it's always cool to, to, you know, get a pulse on what's happening out there outside of your own bubble.
And, and for me, as a, as a Canadian, you know, the, the, the US, uh, the US firms, there's some pretty large firms that do some very cool things. So, um, I'm, I'm always keen to, to listen in on, on random conversations, but then obviously, you know, the, all the good stuff you guys put on as well.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. That's awesome.
I think you nailed it too. I think, um, like we real- when we, when we come in and we say educational first and non-salesy, what it does is it appr- it, it makes people come in with this very collaborative, focused mindset. You were talking about just meeting people and exchanging ideas in the foyer. Like, I hear that all the time, and I think it's because we set that precedent that, like, everybody is here to learn regardless of what stage you're at.
You're here to learn first. And so when people bring that mindset in, it's [00:06:00] pretty cool the connections people make. So if you haven't signed up, we'll put a link in the show notes to sign up as well, but we would love to see you there. Okay, so let's dig into actually talking about what Andy does, what QuadReal does, all those things.
Um, first let's start with some rapid fire context setting. So you have to be quick with your answers 'cause this is just setting the stage for people. But first, what is QuadReal and what is your role within the company?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Uh, um, yeah. So QuadReal's been around now officially for 10 years. Um, so we, uh, own, uh, operate, and develop real estate on behalf of BCI, who is our managing partner.
Um, so we have about 100 million, uh, Canadian, uh, in, in assets that we, um, you know, are either invested in or operate. Um, strong, strong presence in Canada, uh, but we also have a global presence, um, you know, facilities in the US, in the UK, in Australia. Um, uh, kind of all over the place. Um, but, but, but yeah, we, uh, as a group, uh, you know, are put in place to, to, to be fiduciaries for those funds, for that money, uh, for the [00:07:00] pensioners so that they have, um, you know, you know, a, a good, a good foundation, uh, to, to live off of when they retire.
Brad Bonavida: Nice. And what type of buildings are we talking about? 'Cause you guys do a couple different style of commercial buildings, right?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. I mean, uh, the ones that we'll talk about a lot today are commercial and residential. Well, specifically multifamily residential, but, but we're in-- we have our hands in, in a lot of different kinds of assets.
So industrial, um, retail assets, um, um, storage facilities, student housing. Um, we're involved, uh, in, on the investment side on data centers. We have a debt team, um, on the construction side. So yeah, we're, we're, we're in it in, in almost every facet, um, on the real estate side.
Brad Bonavida: Cool. And then your title, as I said, is Director of Building Connectivity.
Tell us a little bit about, like, what that means and what your goals are and what your team looks like.
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. So, uh, um, my role specifically is to help, um, that foundational, that network layer, the compute layer that our operational [00:08:00] technology runs on. So, um, uh, a lot of that is, is, is really, uh, an operational group within Canada.
Um, but we are, again, moving, moving more of our operations outside of Canada, but using that same blueprint. But, um, but really my role, uh, we have a couple people on my team that, that help, you know, on, to cover, uh, we'll, we'll say the Canadian landscape. But really my main clients or the clients that, uh, that, that I'm responsible to are the operators at the building.
Um, but they're also- Yeah ... you know, the teams, like the investment management teams here at QuadReal, right? Like, like why are we investing, you know, this much in a network? Um, you know, is it necessary? Why, why is that necessary? So- Right ... so yeah, there's, there's, there's a heavy part of my job that's, that's operations.
Um, but, but then there's also the, you know, um, you know, making sure that we're being responsible with, with what we're asking for.
Brad Bonavida: Okay. And then my last question, the context setting is you talked about the operators and that side of it. Who are those people? Are those [00:09:00] QuadReal employees typically or- Yeah
how do you guys do that?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. So, um, the people that I interact with the most are, will be your operations managers, supervisors, um, you know, kind of the, the, the boots on the ground. But then to that point as well, like they're also supported by other vendors like on the building automation side or CCTV or lighting control, right?
So there's conversations that we have with those folks as well. Um, you know, that, that, that side of the house changes very frequently. Um, so, so, you know, it's, it's a, it's a matter of just making sure that, you know, everybody's kind of talking the same language and, and has the same goal and, uh, uh, for the buildings that we operate.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Okay. Great. I think that gives kind of a good grasp of who QuadReal is. Um, in terms of who QuadReal is, like in, in a relationship to Nexus Labs, James Dice and Thano Lembrinos have been on the podcast together before, and I- we've used your guys' portfolio as an example in case studies multiple times, and I think that- [00:10:00] We just see it to be a very mature, uh, portfolio compared to a lot of other owners, which gives people an opportunity to learn how you got there.
And a big part of what you guys have done that I think, like, really defines your maturity is the centralization of data and operations that you've done. Um, in-- You, you presented at Nexus Con in 2025, and I took this quick quote that you said that the centralization that you guys have lets you command or quarterback from anywhere.
Um, so for the audience, kind of what do, what do you think of when you think of the centralization of QuadReal's operations and, like, what's kind of been the journey? Where did you start, and what have you gotten to?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Um, so the, the journey started, um, you know, probably about eight years ago or so when, um, you know, when we were looking to, to effectively, um, put in a new, new technology stack within one of our buildings.
Um, and, and the price tag that we got back was, you know, eye, eye-watering or, [00:11:00] um, to, to, to some of the folks. So, so they came back to, to us and were like, "Hey," like, "Should we be paying this?" Um, and you know, I mean, you know, to, to be, to be honest, it was, it was quite high, but at the same time, you know, sometimes you get what you pay for, right?
So, so we took that pri- we took that pricing back, uh, a-and thought to ourselves, "How can we go about this in a way that best serves the business for a long, long term," right? So that's really how the journey started. Um, you know, we, we made some decisions, um, you know, based on our conviction, uh, based on our experience.
Um, at the time, you know, um, y- we were quite young as a, a, as a, as a group, I'll say, from a, from an operating perspective, but we had the chops from either a construction or IT or mechanical or electrical background, so we kinda knew what we were gonna get our, get ourselves into. So, so yeah, that really led, again, to us understanding, you know, what that would look like to, to even roll this out.
And then from that [00:12:00] came a sh- a whole ton of other outcomes like the centralized operation-
Brad Bonavida: Right ...
Andres Rodriguez: like the centralized network management that, that, you know, was, was, was understood, but at the same time we, we didn't know which partners we'd even need to be working with, uh- Yeah ... to be able to, to, to leverage that centralization.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. And I think it's important to, I- we're using the word centralization kind of in two different ways. I was thinking about this before we started. I wanna be clear to the audience of, like, how, like, so we're not confusing that word. So y- when you first were talking about centralization, you're talking about the specific centralization of Quadrail's data.
So you guys use c-a converged passive optical network, which I think I can show some links to other, other, um, pieces of content where we've talked to you guys about that. But that converged network brings data from a bunch of places centralized into one thing. And then when you centralize again, and I think we're gonna dive a little bit into this as one of the outcomes that's on top of that network, [00:13:00] is that you are centralizing your operations team.
A common term is an ROC or a remote operations center, where people are physically sitting in one centralized location and can see, like, everything that's happening across Quadrail buildings so you can be more efficient to, like, tackle issues and do things right. Do you agree with the split there of the word centralization?
Does that make sense with how you guys are doing it?
Andres Rodriguez: For sure. Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, yeah, I think, I think you, you nailed it, Brad. Right? There was, there was a piece to centralize Everything that happened within a building, right? Um, uh, and, and, and that, that can be, you know, anywhere from like 200,000 square feet to two million square feet, right?
There's, there, the ce-central, you know, there, there's a lot to centralize no matter kind of what, what kind of building size you're talking about. But then thereafter, right, if you have a portfolio of buildings, then there's, you know, understanding, you know, what, what you can do from that ROC or we call it B- BOC, um-
Brad Bonavida: Okay
Andres Rodriguez: um, building operation center. But, but yeah, there, there, there's then, [00:14:00] there's the opportunity to have, you know, your more, your most senior staff or staff, or your most specific staff look at problems on a grand scale, right? Where you're not just looking at, you know, one or two buildings, you're looking at the portfolio, right?
Yeah. So that's the other centralization piece that you touched on there.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Yeah. And, and when they do that, they can, they can make smart, scalable decisions across multiple like, bit like, um, there's an issue in building A and we address that. Let's make sure that that same issue isn't going to be a problem in buildings B through Z because we have the control to just look ac- the other side of the screen here and make the change, right?
Andres Rodriguez: For sure. Yeah. And we're- Cool ... we're regionally, we're regionally distributed in Canada in, in really kind of four, well, three main cities, you know, some auxiliary cities as well. But, but being able to kinda understand that like, oh, hey, like the temperature in the West Coast is gonna be extremely high today.
Like let's start to cool all those buildings down a little early, right? Like that's, you know, kind of one of those, one of those [00:15:00] outcomes, right? Of having that regional understanding of what's happening in different places.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Cool. Okay. One , this is kind of a nuanced question, but I think it's important because it, I'm, I'm segueing a bit, but this comes up in our audience a lot, is that, um, you said, you said one of the, one of the issues that you brought up that, or challenges I should say, that you brought up during your Nexus Con presentation is that, um, you guys own the network and so it changes your relationship with vendors sometimes.
And we talk a lot here about, uh, you know, the phrase vendor lock-in, where it's like, well, if your, if your vendors own all of your assets and your network and your systems, then you don't have that much control of it. You guys have gone so far into being autonomous for that, that I, I see this other challenge that mature building owners face where your vendors are saying, "Well, you guys own all this, so you're responsible for like adjustments, changes."
Like, can you sp- is that, is that a, like is, has it gone that far over to the spectrum that now it's like changing your contractual obligations or the contracts that you're writing [00:16:00] with your vendors because you're owning more of this than they are?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. That's a, that's, that's a great, that's a great point.
Um, so what we found is, are there challenges? You know, there certainly are. But, but at the same time, you know, I think, um, you know, there, there's, there's vendor partners that we, you know, have good relationships with, and they understand that, you know, we have a pretty big technical bench that, um, you know, is you know, isn't, isn't just, you know, blowing hot air, right?
Like we're, w- what we're doing is, is we're using technologies that are, you know, known, very well known in, you know, we'll say the IT industry or the networking industry. Um, and we have experts as well that know how to operate, you know, in the building automation space and, you know, that's their, that's their bread and butter.
So, so what I'm, what I'm trying to, I guess, get to here is that the vendor community, I think, understands that from, from Quadrail's perspective, there's certain standards that we are now kind of dictating and, and, and we don't wanna deviate from, right? And, you know, [00:17:00] having a vendor push back is It happens and it, and it's fine, right?
Like, we're, we're not, um, you know, we, we try to be, you know, laying a foundation that we know is going to be, um, something that, that is gonna be in place for the long haul, right? Like, we are long-term investors, so what we're doing is we're putting kind of our money where our mouth is to a certain extent, um, with, with putting in this, you know, good technology and having people, you know, w- work in that environment.
Um, s- you're gonna have to take your lumps every now and then from a vendor being like- Yeah ... you know, "Why are you doing it this way?" But that's, that, that's a fight that, that's worth fighting because we know that our convictions are strong, you know- Yeah ... in, in, in the, in the foundation that we're building.
So we're, we're, we're okay there. But yeah, from a contractual standpoint, um, you know, we haven't r- we haven't really had to like, you know, let's say rewrite the book entirely. But from a construction standpoint, you know, we have some really smart people that are now inserting very specific language in divisional specifications that are, uh, you know, the vendor community needs to [00:18:00]adhere to, otherwise, you know, you can't be part of the bid, right?
Nice. So, so I mean, I think that's, that's where we're, um, perhaps starting to carve out something a little bit different here, right? Where, where we're dictating the terms of how people kind of operate within our buildings or how they construct things in our building. Um, so, so that, that is really kind of...
It, it, it's almost, you know, whittling out the people that don't wanna, you know, work, work by those confines or work in the, in that construct. Um, but, but it really helps us deliver the way we wanna deliver.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Cool. That's awesome. It's, it's such an evolution from, like, the vendor owns control, to you own control, to, like, really taking that.
And we'll be talking, uh, in the construction track at Nexus Con a lot about the idea that you just said of, like, how to put into specifications and contracts early on what you're expecting from these vendors so that these connected building outcomes actually survive through the design and construction and into, you know, what the occupants are actually gonna see.
For sure. Okay, um, [00:19:00] so I think it's always better to... Or it's easier for the audience to understand a lot of the things we talk about if we ground it in a real story, which is why we're gonna go back to a little bit of, you know, the... Well, specifically to the building that you were talking about at Nexus Con.
So tell us about, it's a, it's a multifamily apartment. K- kinda tell us the story of, I th- I guess starting kind of at how you acquired this quickly. Like, what, what did this look like for you guys to get this apartment?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah, I mean, I, I, you know, I wish I was in some of those rooms when they were, you know, making the deal, right?
But, uh, but as far as, uh, as far as I know, there was a, a development, uh, a condo development, um, you know, uh, i- in Toronto that, uh, that unfortunately, um, y- you know, wasn't going to be, um- W- wasn't gonna pan out, you know, from, from the, you know, from the financial sense. Um, you know, somebody decided, "Hey, it's time to cut our losses here and, a- a- and, and move on from this project."
So, you know, there was a distressed, a distressed sale of sorts. Uh, Quadra was able to, to then acquire the prope- [00:20:00] uh, acquire the property. Um, and it was early enough in the sta- i- in the stage where it, it was, it was likely, you know, probably the pouring of concrete, so nothing, nothing was fully baked in terms of, you know, what type of controls, access control system was gonna be in there, what kind of building automation system.
So, so it w- it was early enough that we could, uh, you know, pivot to, to the strategy that we had already adopted, uh, at that point, right? The, I believe this was 2019 that we, that we acquired this property, and at that point, we had already started down this, uh, down this road of the converged building network at most of our commercial assets.
So, so it was one of the, one of the earlier, we'll say, residential properties, but now all of our residential properties fall under the same kinda standard practice. So- Okay ... so we were able to get in there early enough
Brad Bonavida: So you kind of already had the, the playbook for how you wanted to write the specifications to get it built the way that it was because you'd done this at least once before?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. We had, we [00:21:00] had the, we had the commercial side, I would say fairly well understood, right? But, but we were pretty, pretty early in the, in, in the residential, um... In, in, on the residential side, we had only d- we had only really done one other building at that point with that same kind of strategy.
Brad Bonavida: Okay.
And y- so you presented about this, uh, with Saruf from Code Labs, who's one of your, you know, technology vendor partners through this all. Yep. He, he mentioned the integrations that you guys have going in this building, and he said link sensors... or leak sensors, building automation system, metering occupancy sensors, smart door locks, smart lockers, CCTV access control, all in one platform.
Is that in the specification right at the beginning that all of those different systems are gonna be integrated together from the get-go?
Andres Rodriguez: Not, not, not in the specification. So when we, when we go to tender to, uh, specify a specific component or operational technology within the building, it needs to be open, right?
So it needs to be able to have some kind of open API [00:22:00] or be able to, uh, for us to be able to, uh, actually interface with that controller or with that front end to b- then be able to pull that data, um, y- from, from it, and that's where we use, you know, you know, integrators like Code, right? Who u- who understand, uh, very well which are the, the types of building systems that are actually allowing for that.
So, so at, so at that point, we're adding into the specifications the systems, again, per operational technology set, like all the ones that you mentioned before- Mm-hmm ... that are open. So, so from a, from a very, you know, baseline standpoint, they need to be... They can't just be, um, you know, kind of, we like to call it like the vendor lock-in, right?
Yeah. We can't have just like company A say, "Hey, you need to use, you know, our front end." Well, you typically use the front end anyways, but like it will only work with this license and nothing else kind of thing. Like that's what we try to avoid, right? Yeah. We try to avoid that vendor lock-in. Gotcha. But during the specification phase, it just needs to be open, and then we should be able to integrate with it.
I see. So then you can get all the... All, all, everything can then just tie in afterwards.
Brad Bonavida: [00:23:00] So you got all these open systems that you procure through, you know, the contractors and all that stuff. Do, do you have an MSI who's overseeing that integration, or is CODE basically acting as that MSI who is going to actually make sure that the AS and metering know how to communicate with one another, for example?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. And, um, th- that one is, uh, you know, we'll probably have to, we'd probably have to bring in somebody very specific from our team to answer that better than I can. But from a high level, um, it's, it's really dependent on the building size and kind of- Mm-hmm ... the budget that h- that is allocated to, to the types of systems that, that need to integrate, right?
So from a, f- from this perspective, or as far as I know, uh, at IMX, we just use, used CODE as the MSI.
Brad Bonavida: Okay. Cool. And then going, like picturing that your, your outcome is all these systems communicating effectively together, which gets all the way up to your, your BOC where, you know, people can see all this data in one place What is-- can you speak at all for the commissioning process of that in terms of, like, [00:24:00] people are saying they're done.
Is there specific checks you're doing to make sure that these integrations happened effectively with a commissioning agent or with CODE or something like that?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Um, what, what I can, what I can mention is that w- uh, with having a, a, um, integrated building management platform like CODE, we are then able to see all devices and, and we can see those data points or set points that are associated to those devices.
So when you're going through a building floor by floor, although, you know, the commissioning agent may, you know, let's, let's just say to throw a number out there, when they're in- going into the field and conducting their business, they're completing maybe, let's say, 70 or 80% of their commissioning and then just assuming, "Hey, everything else is going fine.
We should be good." Lever- leveraging the use of CODE, being able to, again, go through floor by floor, have somebody- Yeah ... you know, very smart on the other end understand everything that needs to show up, um, from, from a visual perspective and, and can actually see data coming into that [00:25:00] controller or that device and being able to, you know, administer or change a set point.
There's-- that therein is the 100% commissioning, right? Gotcha. Or being able to then understand, "Hey, this building is fully functional, you know, the way it should be." So, so although, um, again, a commis- a commissioning agent or a per- specific vendor may not be going through that, you know, you know, end to end, you know, we then leverage our tools to be able to validate that.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Okay, cool. And let's, let's kind of talk about some of the, like, specifics of the multifamily, which I think is sometimes unique to other building types. Um, you mentioned that you have, uh, suite-level metering i- in-- so every single, every single unit, as I understand it, has its own electrical and water metering.
Andres Rodriguez: Yep.
Brad Bonavida: How, how did, how did you justify doing that? Like, what-- you know, that's like, that's an expensive cost. Is that typical or is that pretty unique to be able to offer that?
Andres Rodriguez: [00:26:00] Um, now, now it's, it's, it's, it from, it's a standard, right? Like it's, it, it, it's something that we're doing now at all of our suites.
Now that's probably, uh, that's, that's probably, um, one of those things that's kind of more common sense than anything else, right? And w- and what I mean by that is, um, you know, if you have, uh, if you have a building and if for whatever reason, you know, I, I like to... Let's say I like to take really long showers and the person next to me doesn't, right?
If there's no metering strategy- Yeah ... in place, we're both paying, you know, 50 bucks a month for water even though I'm the, you know, the water hog. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So having that suite by suite, um, you know, measure is, is now fair, right? Yeah. So now we, now we can't have those complaints that come back to us about their, the cost of their water because, hey, every drop is being, is being measured.
Um- Yeah ... and that also is something that, you know, I think a lot of people these days, you know, we're, we live in an, in, in an economy that is, you know, things are getting a little bit more, more expensive. When you see a bill tied to like how much water you're consuming yourself, sometimes that makes you think, "Hey, like, [00:27:00] you know, maybe I should, you know, tone it down a bit," um, you know, so because I'm spending way too much on water, you know, based on my budget, right?
As, as another example, right? So, um, and then lastly, um, you know, one of those things that, where it helps, and we talked about leak detection, which, you know, knock on wood, we haven't had any triggers lately. But on the metering side of the house, we've already discovered that there's been, you know, um, let's say toilet valves that, that are leaking water or faucets that are leaky.
So when somebody's consuming much more water, you know, this month than they did the previous three months, they come back to us. They're like, "Hey, like I think something is wrong with this meter." The meter's w- working perfectly fine. They're just consuming more water because of a leak that's, you know, actually getting funneled into the proper plumbing system, right?
But now we can, now we can fix things, you know, like a leaky faucet before it becomes a larger problem, right? Yeah. Based on those meters. So, so yeah, there's... It is, it is expensive for sure but, but, you know, from a long-term perspective, y- you know, it, it makes [00:28:00] sense.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. I, I mean, you're effectively saying that you're using those meters as condition-based maintenance tools because they're giving you enough data to do that.
And, and yeah, I guess it's a good point that like, of course it's standard so that you're not paying more . Like you, you brought up the, the shower example. I was thinking like if your next door neighbor's mining, you know, crypto on the side- ... and, and sh- you're not, you don't wanna pay that electrical. For sure.
But what I, what you said in the, um, what you said in the presentation, or it might have been Saruf who said that, that I thought was interesting is obviously you've got that metering, but you, it's so, um- The data's so accessible and exposed that sometimes you're even alerting, uh, tenants beforehand. Like, "Hey, you've-- you're using way more than you used last, you know, month.
Is something going on? Do you need to check that you didn't like, you know, leave something on or something like that?" Right? Right. And that's a pretty, that's a pretty good, like, tenant experience, um, thing for those people to have within the apartment.
Andres Rodriguez: For sure. Yeah. It's, it's, it's-- It can be-- For, for some it can [00:29:00] be a peace of mind thing, right?
And, and, and knowing that, you know, they, they feel valued, right? Um, because some- someone's letting them know before they get a, you know, painful bill
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. The other, uh, last piece of tech that's kind of tenant or multi-family related that I wanted to talk about is access control just for a second, because I think that we talk to a lot of, uh, you know, office commercial, uh, building owners, and they're actually definitely a step behind multi-family residential when it comes to the access control systems that they have because it's so important to this work.
So, uh, I'm not familiar with ButterflyMX, but that's who it sounds like you guys used, and, and they're-- it's, it's a little bit advanced. You don't-- It's not just fob-based, but it's mobile-based or something, right?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Yeah, no, it's, um... So we have a, we have a, a team, um, or th-there's a group within our group that deals specifically with the mobile applications and, um, uh, we've had very good success, um, at, uh, at that, uh, at that team developing, you know, something that, [00:30:00] that's, that's quite useful to the tenants and now can integrate with a tool set like ButterflyMX, right?
So, so now you have the ability to basically do everything that you would normally do, let's say, as a, uh, uh, uh, as a user of a building, like being able to access the building, you know, with your phone, um, being able to get into certain areas like, you know, let, let's say the, the bike facility or being able to open, you know, your garage door.
Um, you know, normal things, but now you can do things kind of over and above what you might normally think you can do at a residential building, right? You have a, a, a guest that, that's coming in that day, right? Or you have, you know, your friends coming in that day. Now you can give them a pass ahead of time.
Or if the Amazon guy is coming to, to deliver your package, um, you know, when he, when he presses the button for you to actually get into the building, you can tell him, you know, exactly where to leave it or be like, "Hey, can you, can you wait, you know, a minute? I'll be down there." Al-although I don't know how, how likely he is to wait.
But anyways, it's, it's one of those things where now yourself as a [00:31:00]tenant, you know, don't have to be asking the concierge or the maintenance person to do something. You can do that all from, you know, the power of your own phone.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Cool. Okay. That, that's-- I think that's a pretty good setting the stage for what's unique about this building, and, and what we've talked about so far has been that, that second definition of centralized we gave, where it's kind of like you centralized operations in a way that makes this building run efficient.
So going back to your converged network, your centralization as a place to group in data, we were talking before we started here that your job is actually a lot more specific on the, the o-operational technology, priv-privacy, security, cyber side. So maybe just start with like bringing that now in as another piece of the centralization.
Was it more that, um, once you were centralized with your data, you were able to be more cyber effective, cybersecurity effective, or once you wanted to be cy-- you [00:32:00] wanted to be more cybersecurity effective, so you did centralize your data as one of those ways to do that?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Um, we, uh, you know, a- again, for the benefits of, of converging, um, you know, our buildings, we were, we were obviously able to now be able to see, at the very least, uh, you know, everything that passes through, uh, you know, the network appliances, the network devices that are at those buildings, right?
So, um, now you have all this information, but how do you even un- unearth all of that, right? It's one thing to have traffic passing through your network, but how do you, how do you inspect, um, you know, use, use that inspection to then catalog, and then after you catalog, like, like what are you doing with that data, right?
So, so from that, from that converged building network platform, we had a means to have, um, you, you know, access to all the data. Um, we, we, we tried, you know, a, a few different things where it came to, um, uh, doing, doing really in-depth [00:33:00] dis- device discovery, but we found it pretty tricky on, uh, especially on the operations technology side to, to, to leverage, let's say, IT types of tool sets to be able to understand what was there because, you know, they didn't really speak the BACnet language or Modbus or, you know, all of those, you know, protocols that are, that are very unique to a, to a building stack.
So we, we finally, after, you know, a lot of tried and tested, um, uh, POCs landed on Armis. Um, so we, we then deployed at, at a large subset, more than half of the sites, um, uh, you know, of the, of the, sorry, of the 60 that are, that we have converged, um, and brought that appliance in to now really kind of unearth, you know, all of the infor- all of the, sorry, the devices that are in our operational stack, but then also categorize, um- Yeah
you know, out of the box, you know, those vulnerability scores. Um, and really start to help us now [00:34:00] Differ-- not differentiate, but now how to prioritize, you know, what should we be doing? You know, what is like the red flag or the red flags, and how do we even do something about that, right? Not to say that you don't do anything with the yellow flags, but- Yeah
you know, what we're trying to do here is obviously centralize, um, you know, a, a means to, to all that information from a cyber perspective, from a posture perspective, and, and, and then, and then start to attack that, you know, bit by bit. Um, and you know, we d- like probably, probably some other institutional investors, you know, we, we, we have, uh, buildings that operate on specific, um, uh, s- uh, operational stacks, right?
Like a, like a, you know, like a Johnson controller, like a Distech, right? So, you know, if there's a problem that's arising, you know, in, in a building, you know, there's probably a subset of buildings that are probably under that same kind of umbrella, right? Mm-hmm. So now being able to leverage, you know, a, a contractor or a [00:35:00] vendor to do, you know, that same thing at five buildings, right?
Yeah. So we're not just kind of piecemealing this all over the place, right? We're, we're having a, a, a better strategy of, you know, let, let's hit, let's hit these targets, but like, let's hit the, the ones that are the biggest, right?
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Let's, let's break down that part just a little bit. And I'm sure there's a lot of different, um, I'm sure it goes a lot of different ways, but help me with an example of like, so Armis is scanning for you guys and you're getting these green, yellow, reds, and you see all these reds and it's like a controller or a sensor or something, and you're like Going to the contractor and showing them that installed that and like, "Hey, fix this," or patch this, or like how does that communication chain usually go to get it fixed?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. It's, it, it, it can be tricky. Um, you know, it's, it, it's a, it's a lot more difficult in a lot of cases to hit individual controllers. It's, it's tough to just like, let's say, push once and boom, like everything's upgraded.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah.
Andres Rodriguez: Right? That, that's, that's not typically how it works. So what we try to do, right, is understand the problem as, as, [00:36:00] as best we can, and protect and, and make some kind of compensating control, um, in the interim, right?
To continue, 'cause y- we have to keep the lights on, right? Like no matter what, you know, it's all about availability. Yeah. It's all, it's all about being able to, to, to make sure that, you know, our, the people that are using the building can still use the building, right? But how do we mitigate, you know, what can be a pretty big red flag, continue to operate until that vendor can come in and fix this problem on a big scale.
So- Mm-hmm ... so what we'll, what you'll typically find is we'll find a, a pr- a pr- a pretty big problem. We'll figure out a way to, let's say, isolate or quarantine that while still maintaining operation until we can bring somebody in to then do, do the, um, you know, the work required to, to get us back on our feet into a, a, a better operational state.
Brad Bonavida: Nice. That's great. I- we've made it this far into a conversation about OT cybersecurity without saying AI, which is crazy. And I don't know if- ... I don't know if we even have time to open up that can of [00:37:00] worms, but we will, uh, we're, we have a, you know, cybersecurity related, uh, session at Nexus Con, which I need to talk to you about maybe after the podcast or something, 'cause I think, you know, maybe you should be involved in that.
But I, we, we definitely wanna bring that question into this as well. That's kind of like, okay, you're, you s- you have this ability to scan if you actually have an OT networking, a network monitoring, uh, solution like Armis or someone else, and you have these green, yellow, red, but now you've got this orthogonal AI of like either to help you or to hurt you and how people are thinking about that.
We're gonna be talking about that with a lot of building owners. So, um, let's, let's, uh, save that piece and if you wanna hear what Andy has to say about it, you gotta hear what he has to say about it at Nexus Con. So, uh, let's just close... Let, we'll, we'll go do carve-outs, but before we do carve-outs, just kind of like you guys are a very mature building owner organization, so I, I'd love for you to try to summarize just a little bit of actionable advice for somebody who might not be as far as QuadReal.
If you were talking to somebody who, you know, had more [00:38:00] than 20 buildings and no converged network at all, and was just like starting to toy with this idea of like, "Yeah, we want a central operations team. We want the ability to, you know, uh, protect our devices from cybersecurity threats," what's kinda like the first place that they should start to go?
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah. Uh, I, I would say, you know, you, you really need to understand, um, from, let's say, almost at the highest level possible, like from like, let's say the board level, um, you know, things that they're concerned about, right? Like we... Maybe it, maybe because of just the way QuadReal is, we have a very interested board in making sure that we're, you know, doing the right things, um, even from a cyber perspective to the building level.
So, you know, I think, you think that conversation needs to happen, you know, at the C level or, or higher, right? Um- Business
Brad Bonavida: case.
Andres Rodriguez: Right. Yeah. Like, like you need, you need to make sure that like, it is, it is understood the kind of impacts that can [00:39:00] happen, um, when you have... When you don't have a res- either re- the resiliency to withstand not even a cyber attack.
Let's say you have a controller that goes offline, like what is your building continuity plan? Like, how are you- Mm-hmm ... making sure that people can still use the facility, right? So, so I think you need to make sure that you're painting this picture that like, um, you know, if, you know, something breaks, like how are we recovering, right?
I think that will help you, um, you know, navigate the, the capital that's then required because as, as you're, as everyone's aware, right, doing anything at one building can be expensive. Doing it at 20, that's a big ask, right? That's- Yeah ... that, that's always gonna be a big ask. Um, so, you know, understanding, you know, what perhaps is the, the long-term strategy for those groups of assets, right?
You know, maybe of those 20, you're only really gonna wanna hold on to 10 of them really long term, right? So, you know, you, you're, you're gonna wanna really understand, [00:40:00] wanna understand where you're investing, where you're putting, and not only the capital, but that time as well, right? Yeah. Um, and it's also really important, I think, fundamentally to make sure that the users are understanding, you know, the dos and don'ts.
Um, we have a very good cyber team here as well that does very regular campaigns, um, to, to educate our, our, our teams, right? To, to, to make sure they know, um, you know, what is the right thing to do, what's the wrong thing to do. Um, so that, that's super helpful as well where it comes, where it comes to cyber.
But, but, um, but yeah, um, you know, it, it's, it's one of the... It's, uh... That's a tough, it's a tough one to answer, but, but I would say that, that we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today without that buy-in from the top, right? Without that- Yeah ... without that, that governance layer- Helping us understand what the business really wants, 'cause then we could, then we could, you know, shoot from, start shooting from the hip and being like, "Okay, well, you [00:41:00] want, you want, you know, A through B out- A through, sorry, E outcomes, we need to do all, all of these things to be able to satisfy that."
Brad Bonavida: Yep. Yep. It, that's a fantastic answer. It really reminds me of the, um, keynote from Nexus Con last year when we had the Dune kind of, um, table that showed at the bottom, it's like technologies that you can use, and it's like the people who are using those to get jobs done. But at the very top, it's what are the business level outcomes that are achieved through this through path of doing these things.
Hmm. Yeah. So it's a, it's a good answer that we hear all the time. So, um, yeah, I think it's definitely the right answer. Okay. Let's end quickly with carve-outs of, you know, some more interesting personal stuff about ourselves. I'll go first with mine. Uh, I I am a, uh, ex-baseball player, but now I'm old, so I play men's softball.
And, um- ... uh, la- so I've been playing in this men's softball league in the town I live in now for three years, and I have never won a softball game before for three years. And I, I accredit [00:42:00] that to two things. I'm not, I'm not a, I'm a pretty good softball player. Number one, this league has some outstanding teams, and number two, I have a bunch of friends on the team who've never even put a glove on before, but we still have fun with it.
So it's a long time to go without winning a single softball game. We won last night, night, 20 to 19 in the last game of the season. And it's the first softball game I've won in three years. Uh, I was so happy. It was the best, best night of my life to win. I, I think it was like, I counted, it was 700 days I went without winning a softball game.
So a big, big night for me in my very, very amateur softball career. What about you, Andy? What do you got for us?
Andres Rodriguez: Those, those poor pitchers, those ERAs are just-
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, that's men's softball for you. Lots of double digit scores.
Andres Rodriguez: Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, no, I was, I was, I was thinking about what I, what I could, what I could bring up on the, on the carve-outs and, and honestly, um, you know, I j- I just wanna, you know, I guess close it off with, with being grateful.
And, um, you know, this has been, for me, it's been a pretty, pretty tough year. You know, personally, a lot of kind of [00:43:00] things have been a bit rough this year, but, you know, I'm very grateful for the support that I have from my family, from my wife. Um, even though my kids probably aren't really supporting me, they, they, they do kind of make me feel, you know, grateful that the, that, that I am a dad and I'm able to spend time with them.
Um, and yeah, I mean, I, I'm very grateful that I'm able to work at QuadReal, have a, have an awesome, uh, awesome team that I work with. My boss is great. Um, you know, the company treats you very well. Uh, and I'm grateful to be able to participate in things like this, right? To be able to be a part of a, like, a real estate community that I think is really one that's open, uh, a- and willing to share and, you know, being able to go to Nexus Con and, and, and, and keep that grateful spirit up is, uh, you know, something that I'm looking forward to.
Just being grateful for You know, the life I have and, and, and, uh, and, and being able to share it with others
Brad Bonavida: That, that might be one of my favorite carve-outs I've ever heard. That's fantastic, and I think a message [00:44:00] that, um, isn't said enough. So thank you. That was really, really awesome. All right, well, great talking to you, Andy.
Looking forward to seeing you in October. Um, appreciate it
Rosy Khalife: Okay, friends. Thank you for listening to this episode. As we continue to grow our global community of change makers, we need your help. For the next couple of months, we're challenging our listeners to share a link to their favorite Nexus episode on LinkedIn with a short post about why you listen. It would really, really help us out.
Make sure to tag us in the post so we can see it. Have a good one.
This is a great piece!
I agree.