Rittenhouse Communications Group
The Design-Build Integrator for Smart Buildings

Rittenhouse Communications Group (RCG) has delivered smart, connected, and safe buildings to multifamily builders, building owners, and property managers in the Mid-Atlantic region for ten years. The smart building company provides a catalogue of prop-tech and building automation solutions from various verticals, designed as an integrated technology package to suit their property requirements. This includes low voltage structured cabling, single point access control, robust WiFi solutions, audio and video solutions, IP surveillance, network installations, unified communications, and hospitality solutions.

The firm adorns the role of a design-build integrator to create smart buildings, viewing technology through a holistic lens rather than siloed parts of building automation systems from various vendors. This perspective enables clients with regional and national assets to receive an integrated package through a single point of contact, which can be deployed and monitored cost-efficiently across properties.

“We design the smart building ourselves. This eliminates the need for a consultant, enabling clients to save on costs,” explains Sean Edwards, president of Rittenhouse Communications Group.

To design the technology package that fulfills the client’s smart building needs, RCG follows a six-step process. It begins with a deep dive discovery meeting to explore the client’s requirements and formulate their end goals. In the next step, the firm’s engineering team collaborates with the client, their architects, and other project stakeholders to design smart buildings, eliminating possible scope gaps. This cooperation also ensures the properties adapt to the proptech industry's changing landscape. It then self-procures solutions to eliminate project delays and guarantees the accuracy of the deliverables of its smart building design.

Upon finalizing the building automation design of the property, RCG’s certified in-house technicians install, configure, standardize, and deploy the integrated technology deliverables.

Clients are provided with in-depth training and as-built drawings to help them understand the building automation systems and solutions. The designed smart building is handed over to the client after training; RCG also offers additional support through its account management and support teams.

“We understand the client’s needs and design the property around it rather than designing a building around the systems and solutions at disposal," says Sean Edwards.

Over the years, RCG has successfully delivered safe, smart, and connected buildings to regional and national multifamily builders, building owners, and property owners based on their requirements. For instance, a national client used five camera systems and six login credentials and trained employees to operate and maintain multiple systems. Within one year after approaching the smart building company, it retrofitted the client’s existing assets to a standardized system for a nominal fee. It devised a technology roadmap to implement future developments and standardization. This enabled the client to save 50 percent of their recurring services and 20 percent of their capital expenditures.

Its commitment to providing safer and more connected buildings extends beyond builders, owners, and managers to the tenants who live in these smart properties. The building automation solution provider offers a tenant-facing mobile application called PropKey that unifies the end-to-end technology solutions deployed under a single access control platform. The application solution eliminates the need for third-party software to do the equivalent, saving time and cost for smart property owners and managers. Residents and property managers have complete control over their units with the app, facilitating easy access to building amenities, including digital key and booking amenities. To ensure that users have a seamless app experience, 24/7 support services and ongoing training are provided.

RCG, being experts in smart building technology, views technology as a whole and meets the client’s needs with integrated technology solutions while remaining cost-effective. Edwards explains this concept through a scenario. A third-party consultant suggests using a digital latch for each unit of the property, an intercom to grant entry, and the services of an IoT company to ensure that the above process runs smoothly. A high cost is incurred to use all three together. However, a well-designed access control system can replace the three for a cost of one, making the smart building effective and cost-efficient.

Experience in the property technology industry facilitated RCG to develop a design process and provide integrated technology solutions, helping them accomplish the client’s smart building requirements. Its partnerships with various hardware and software vendors ensure that clients have access to best-in-class products. In addition, providing a single point of contact for all these integrated technologies enable clients to access them in a single pane of glass solution, making them easy to use, scale, and monitor. The expertise it garnered in providing tailored building automation solutions sets RCG leagues apart from its peers in the Mid-Atlantic region.