As winter is trying to wind down in Boston, many property management issues should be part of daily operations.
Communication with tenants and vendors is so important. Make sure your email lists and telephone numbers for site personnel are up to date. I want to thank all of the chapters nationwide and IREM National office in Chicago for their concern about Boston members and their properties.
It is time to update the disaster plan for properties in the Boston area. Lori Burger, our national president has a great outline to follow. We have several of our Friends of IREM/Industry Partners that can help with your process. Visit http://www.iremboston.org/irem/organizations/foi.phx?navid=821 for our list.
As much as we are leading the nation with our Boston snow inch count, the snow removal process has taxed our budgets in money and equipment. The question is still do we keep the snow removal operation in house or do we farm out snow removal to a vendor. Snow removal plans must include roof clean off funds. Ice dams are also alive and well in Boston. Bidding the snow removal budget by the inch per storm has always worked for me. Start today with your present year operation and review it for good and bad issues and plan your budget accordingly.
Boston infrastructure has really let many of our owners and managers down. Transportation is a key part of property management as it pertains to tenants. There are tenants on the South Shore who have had to enforce one hour and 30 minute rides by the make shift bus system to Braintree because the T was not operational. While it was great the powers of the T hired hand shovelers to help, the system was not operational. The commuter rail to Plymouth was just canceled one week. When the T and the Commuter Rail were down the car count on Rte. 3 became overwhelming. Thank you to the Plymouth and Brockton bus company who persevered through this month getting South Shore residents to Boston and Logan airport with kindness.
The committee trying to bring the Olympics to Boston would include work on our Boston infrastructure. People we need this work on the infrastructure transportation system whether we are awarded the Olympics or not. At my suggestion, the executive board has discussed and agreed to back up the committee on bringing the Olympics to Boston for the upgrade in the infrastructure before winter began. Mr. Kraft and the Patriots organization have signed a contract to provide more service to the Foxboro area. Supporting the properties and businesses in that Foxboro area is huge. I urge everyone to give serious thought to helping this committee obtain the Olympics because our infrastructure will be completed much sooner than if we in Boston had to do it alone.
Colleen Costa, CPM, ARM, is the 2015 IREM Boston president and president and principal of CPC Management, LLC, Kingston, Mass.