(Bloomberg)—Let your dog walker into your apartment while you’re at the office. Or grant your in-laws access to the building’s gym while you’re sunning on a beach. It’ll be possible at new projects by some of the biggest U.S. builders.
Toll Brothers Inc., Brookfield Property Partners LP, RXR Realty and Related Group of Florida are among developers incorporating smart-access technology from Latch in selected upcoming condo and rental projects, New York-based Latch said in a statement Monday.
Latch lets residents use their smartphones to unlock the door to their apartment, amenity spaces and the main entrance of a building. Users can grant access to guests and service providers, like dog walkers and cleaners, by providing them temporary entry codes. A wide-angle camera embedded in the hardware at each doorway will create a visual record of every interaction by a non-resident -- all of it viewable through the Latch app on the resident’s phone.
“You have to put door handles in no matter what,” said Scott Andersen, vice president of sales at Latch, who helped market the system to developers. “We would say you should put in Latch.”
Having a single entry system at different parts of the building, rather than one key for an apartment and a separate card for amenity spaces and the mail room, “is a tremendous value proposition for a developer,” Andersen said. “I can pull out operating costs and I can add a value amenity for my residents.”
Brookfield’s including the technology at Greenpoint Landing, the rental complex it’s co-developing on the Brooklyn waterfront. Related Group is adding it to Wynwood 25, a Miami-area rental-and-retail project. And Toll is incorporating it into communities in the Boston, Dallas, Atlanta and New York areas. RXR will add it across its multifamily portfolio, starting with buildings in Brooklyn, Yonkers and New Rochelle.
Latch, founded by veterans of Apple Inc., has raised more than $26 million in private funding, according to the statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Oshrat Carmiel in New York at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Taub at [email protected] Christine Maurus
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