Aug 10, 2023

The partnership aims to better integrate building operations and tenant experiences By Philip Russo August 10, 2023 9:00 am Boston's skyline in fall 2022. Photo: Carlin Stiehl for The Boston Globe via Getty Images Cove , an integrated tenant experience and building operations platform, announced Thursday that it has partnered with ownership giant Nuveen Real Estate on what it describes as a pilot program in eight Boston and Washington, D.C. office properties. Nuveen chose Cove to use the D.C.-based proptech company’s tenant experience, operations, flex office and performance data platform because of its overall integration of services, said Skylar Huth, director of asset management at Nuveen. “We were very impressed with the Cove app,” said Huth. “We’ve worked with several other kinds of engagement apps and felt Cove had something that maybe the others didn’t. While others were very focused on tenant events and engaging with tenants, which is very important, Cove felt like more of a holistic building app.” The Cove app’s ability to combine building operations’ functions made it attractive to Nuveen, Huth said. These functions include direct maintenance, reporting and communication with a property manager, and address  tenant experiences like reserving a conference room. “We do think it is unique,” added Huth. “There are a lot of project solutions out there that are very niche-focused. You end up having 50 different technologies that are in a building and nothing tying them together. So we think Cove has done a good job of having something that’s tenant-facing, but also something that the engineers at the property managers can use to help operate the building.” Nuveen’s ability to consolidate services on Cove’s platform also saves costs for the company, said Huth. “Obviously, it helps save on cost to have fewer different services out there,” he said. “It just makes things easier operationally to have everything on a single dashboard and to see aggregate data, especially for companies like us that are vertically integrated. Our property managers and engineers are third parties, so we want to have access to some of that data, and be able to compare it across properties and across markets. There’s a lot of value in that.” Nuveen plans to roll out the Cove app to its piloting tenants in the next 30 days, said Huth. Cove has been on something of a roll in the last year. Blackstone Innovation Investments led Cove’s $10 million Series A round in 2022, while Cove’s strategic relationship with Cushman & Wakefield was announced in June 2023. In addition, Cove was recognized in June 2023 as the best tech innovator in Realcomm ’s Intelligent Building Category. “We are honored to have been selected as the technology partner for a real estate leader like Nuveen,” said Adam Segal, co-founder and CEO of Cove. “Nuveen is an incredible and innovative owner of real estate globally. We are excited for this partnership opportunity to ensure a seamless experience for tenants and operators alike.” Philip Russo can be reached at prusso@commercialobserver.com . Keywords: