In the United Kingdom (UK), and especially in London, high-rise buildings have been on the rise for a number of years. As the population of the UK is growing year-by-year with the increased influx of immigration, real estate companies and developers have figured out the solution. Instead of building houses that expand a city horizontally, they decided to build high-rise buildings that expand a city vertically.
Nevertheless, high-rise buildings are not without their challenges. This article will analyse the challenges in managing high-rise buildings. Additionally, Walter Soriano, who is a UK based property expert, will also greatly contribute to this article by sharing his invaluable insights regarding the challenges in managing high-rise buildings.
Popularity of High-Rise Buildings
As aforementioned, high-rise buildings are significantly on the rise, over the last decade especially, in the UK. London has obviously seen the most noticeable impact of all cities in the UK.
Due to its massive population and the fact that it’s been growing over the years, real estate companies and developers have determined that the most viable solution is to build high-rise buildings in order to accommodate to this massive population.
Nonetheless, Manchester is also a city that has substantially increased the number of high-rise buildings within the city. Just like London, Manchester has a number of reputable universities and leading companies that means that individuals are interested in living in the central area of the city, rather than commuting through the suburbs to get to class or work.
Not to mention, high-rise buildings are also very amongst the younger generation as younger people tend to prefer to live in the bustling city centre than in the suburbs and they can also get to enjoy the amenities and facilities that high-rise buildings tend to offer.
Correspondingly, high-rise buildings usually have various facilities and amenities included in the building, which also means shared spaces for younger people to interact with each other.
In addition, high-rise buildings also sometimes tend to include commercial spaces on the ground floor of the building, which means that people can shop and use those stores right below their feet.
Without this proximity, living in the suburbs usually means that you also have to buy a car in order to commute to work/ class as well as all the shops that an individual needs and wants to shop at.
To validate, the Buildout Recruitment rightly observed that: “In both the UK and across the world, there has been a significant rise in the number of residential towers as well as a significant increase in mixed-use towers.” https://www.buildoutrecruitment.co.uk/news/news/uk-high-rise-construction-spurred-by-residential-demand
Challenges of Managing High-Rise Buildings
One of the most important challenges of managing high-rise buildings is exactly that. It’s management. A high-rise building, in contrast with an individual house or a building with only 2 floors, requires much bigger personnel, ranging from reception staff, employees responsible for the commercial and shared spaces, among other things. As a result, the sheer number of employees need to be coordinated properly, trained properly and their shifts must be determined appropriate in an ethical, honest and fair way. It goes without saying that managing and coordinating between 100 employees is much more difficult than managing and coordinating between 10 employees.
Similarly, handling the requests of 1000 customers is much more challenging than handling the requests of 50 customers. High-rise buildings need to ensure that each tenant is satisfied, listening to their feedback and be available promptly in case of any issues such as the fridge malfunctioning.
That being said, high-rise buildings generally hire property managers to take care of such responsibilities and overall ‘headaches’. However, it’s not so easy to hire a top-class property manager and even if one can find one such responsible and hard-working property manager, they would most probably be expensive. Thus, increasing the overall payroll and month-to-month expenses associated with running and managing the high-rise building.
As Walter, stated: “We are seeing more and more projects facing the difficulty of finding the proper personnel and not just property managers. Even with the influx of immigration in the UK, we have to be reminded of the fact that the UK left the EU, through Brexit, and hence, many individuals with experience in this field are not in the UK anymore.
The profitability of high-rise buildings in the UK are more and more coming into question. To handle the increased bills associated with the managing of high-rise buildings, landlords are increasing rents but obviously, citizens of the UK are not happy about that. The backlash in the media is clear for everyone to see!”
Energy Efficiency
Accordingly, High-rise buildings are not only more difficult to make energy efficient but also come under much more scrutiny by the public than any individual house. A massive building that wastes energy is much more likely to come under scrutiny in the media and also in the House of Parliament by MPs eager to apply pressure to the building’s management and owners.
That being said, the major challenge of managing high-rise buildings in terms of energy efficiency is the capital intensiveness associated with making that big building environmentally sustainable and energy efficient.
As a matter of fact, the vast amount of solar panels, for example, that need to be bought to make the building environmentally sustainable will have to be considered on TOP of the increased cost of the other material to be used within the high-rise building.
With inflation being very high in the UK after the COVID-19 pandemic, everything used for the high-rise building has been significantly more expensive, ranging from the material to be used outside the high-rise building as well as inside such as furniture, decorations, elevators, among other things.
Walter put it best when he said “Therefore, the building’s owners and management would have to do a meticulous financial analysis to ensure that they will be obtaining a Return on Investment (ROI) from their investment in renewable energy in order to power a big building.”
Conclusion
Taking everything into account, high-rise buildings are, and have been, on the rise for numerous years in the UK. High-rise buildings are increasingly popular for their great locations within the city centre and the fact that they provide numerous amenities, facilities as well as shared and commercial spaces to utilise.
However, as made clear within this article, managing high-rise buildings also bear some quite large challenges. Namely, a big size of staff means more responsibilities, coordination and added expenses.
Moreover, energy efficiency is at the centre of the latest governments of the UK with regards to laws, guidelines, initiatives and policies. Hence, non-energy efficient buildings are increasingly under added scrutiny. Notably, rendering high-rise buildings as energy efficient would require various measures that also added to the overall cost of the management of the building.
