CommonWealth Partners is a private real estate investment, development, management and operating company based in Los Angeles, CA. Founded in 1995, the company owns and manages premier institutional-quality office properties across the United States.
Customer profile
CommonWealth Partners is a private real estate investment, development, management and operating company based in Los Angeles, CA. Founded in 1995, the company owns and manages premier institutional-quality office properties across the United States.
Business challenges
CommonWealth manages a commercial office and retail building located in San Francisco’s Financial District known as 560 Mission. The building has an occupancy of approximately 2,000 people. It is 31 stories tall, with two basement levels: B1 and B2. During the weekend, a two-person security staff manages 28 analog cameras installed throughout the 665,000-square-foot building. Theft and vagrant monitoring are two primary security concerns.
3VR solution
In late 2012, CommonWealth decided it was time to upgrade its existing security system. The company needed a platform that would easily integrate with its existing 28 cameras as well as any new IP and high-resolution cameras it might install in the later part of 2013. To suit these needs, security integrator W. Bradley Electric (WBE) recommended and installed a
3VR P-Series hybrid video recorder (HVR).
Use case
On Sunday, Oct. 7, 2012, 560 Mission’s building engineer noticed movement in the B2 storage area. The engineer approached and encountered a man rummaging behind a locked 6-foot-tall chain-linked fence, which stores the building’s copper supply. The copper is worth an estimated $2,000. When the engineer yelled out to the intruder, the intruder jumped over the fence and fled the building. The engineer alerted the security staff, who immediately accessed the 3VR platform to find archived video of the incident. With 3VR’s easily-to-scan thumbnail “event cards” laid in a storyboard format, security was able to view the associated video of the intruder’s movements from the time he arrived on the scene to when he fled the premises.
The 3VR system was installed three days before the attempted copper theft incident. Although the security staff was not formally trained on the system yet, within minutes they were able to navigate 3VR’s intuitive interface (OpCenter) and use its forensic search capability to find the evidence they needed.
After quickly reviewing the video, the security staff contacted the police and effortlessly downloaded six video clips for them to use in their investigation. With police still in the building, they were lucky enough to spot the suspect returning for his vehicle. A security staff member and a police officer approached him and identified the suspect as the man in the video. He was arrested by police.
With 3VR’s easy-to-use platform, the time spent searching for video evidence was drastically reduced. Because the security staff at 560 Mission was able to find the event so quickly, it allowed them to analyze the content and properly identify the suspect when he returned to the scene of the attempted theft. In addition, they were able to quickly and easily download the video evidence to aid in the police investigation and future prosecution of the suspect. What’s more, they were able to accomplish all of this with no previous training on how to use the system.
Future plans
CommonWealth plans to upgrade up to four of its analog cameras to high-resolution IP cameras, specifically for the lobby. The company plans to use these cameras and the 3VR system not only to monitor movement, but also to leverage the high resolution to swiftly identify the nature of the movement. Once these new cameras are installed, they plan to start implementing 3VR’s video analytics, such as Facial Surveillance.