How Do Buyers React to Rising’s Built-In Internet?

Marc Gittleman is the CEO of 5×5 Telecom, Rising Realty’s sister telecommunications company.

LOS ANGELES—Rising Realty Partners’ sister telecommunications company 5×5 Telecom is making major waves in the office sector. The company launched the telecommunications company at PacMutual as a reliable and affordable Internet and phone service, and it resulted in tremendous occupancy and rent growth. Now, the firm is launching the service at all of its properties and other property owners are signing up, too. But, is there problem when an investor and property owner operates the Internet service at a competitor’s building? We asked Marc Gittleman, the CEO of 5×5 Telecom, about buyers’ response to the Internet service during the incredible sale of PacMutual and how buyers and sellers are responding now.

“It was a huge part of the 100 tours that we did when we were selling PacMutual,” Marc Gittleman, the CEO of 5×5 Telecom, tells GlobeSt.com. “It did breed a lot of questions, like who owns that company; what happens when we sell the property; are you going to continue the quality of service? Those were all questions that all of the serious buyers had, and the answers were very simple. The telecom business is a for-profit venture. We would be foolish to turn off that revenue stream, because it is not an insignificant revenue stream and we wouldn’t be perusing it if it were. We want the new owners to understand what we did and be happy that they have a place to send new tenants leasing space. That is a transition that we worked on through training and educating, and taking something that is an unknown and making it a benefit or another asset to the building.”