| Stemming the tide: Zimmer PM team springs into action after flood |
 The first call came at 12:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning.
A property manager often boasts to clients that the Zimmer team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to respond to any emergencies. Fortunately, these types of calls don't happen all that often. This time, on May 6, the call came because heavy rains overnight were the cause of severe flooding at a multi-tenant office/warehouse building in Olathe, KS. One of the tenants operates a recycling facility for cooking oil and runs shifts throughout the night. When the flooding began, they made the call to Zimmer's Client Help Desk, igniting the team's response.
"As soon as we got the call, our property manager went out there to meet with the tenant and assess the situation," said Skip Rosenstock, Director of Field Property Management. "When he got there, there was 3 to- 3-and-a-half inches of standing water in the loading dock area. From there, he started inspecting all of the spaces and began to triage the entire property." After conducting his initial assessment, the property manager met with each of the property's tenants and began calling contractors to begin the cleanup process.
"We had three cleanup bids before the end of the day Sunday and started the actual cleanup by 4 p.m., Monday afternoon," said Rosenstock, CPM, CCIM. "By noon Tuesday we had selected a vendor for the total cleanup." Total cleanup for the 13-unit mixed-use industrial property would includes carpet cleaning, removal and replacement of base trim and the use of fans and blowers to dry out the walls from the inside out. In some areas, dry wall and insulation were replaced and as of June 1, all 13 units were back to normal operating condition. "We could have had the process completed earlier, but one of our tenants was working on a tight deadline and May is one of their busiest months of the year," Rosenstock said. "Because of that, we were asked to delay some of the work in that particular space until after Memorial Day." Zimmer team responds to roof collapse
Zimmer's communication processes allowed for a quick reaction resulting in the hiring of a structural engineer to have scaffolding installed to support the damaged area by close of business the following Monday, thus preventing any further collapse. The Zimmer team was able to enclose the damaged area and allow the business, a bakery and catering company, to hold a previously-scheduled event in the space on the Wednesday following the partial collapse. "We have strong processes and procedures in place and great vendor relationships here at Zimmer," Rosenstock said. "Our processes of communication, combined with the "Whatever It Takes" attitude of all parties enabled us to to successfully respond to both of these emergency situations. Nobody wants to have these things happen, but we are prepared, and those preparations allow us to solve these types of issues in a timely manner." |
May's flooding wasn't the only emergency call the Zimmer team has had to respond to this spring. In early April, one Kansas City, Missouri industrial building suffered a partial roof collapse. The initial call came at 5:15 p.m. on a Friday.