"The first thing I want to do is assure all my tenants," Don Tait, former chairman of the Austin Building Owners and Managers Association disaster committee, tells GlobeSt.com. He says he'll tell tenants, via e-mail, that he's reviewing security issues. Then he'll meet with tenant representatives to provide updates and "make sure everybody knows what to do."

Tait, the building manager for T. Stacy Associates, said it probably will mean handing out basic safety procedures out all over again. "There's no telling where they've put it," he says. "These are things people put in a notebook, put it somewhere and say, 'OK, I've got it, thank you very much,' but no one ever looks at it." Tait manages the 15-story 823 Congress building, 12-story Perry-Brooks Building and six-story Texas Trial Lawyers building in Austin's CBD for Stacy.

The City of Austin still had its emergency response center operating Wednesday. Jack Drummond, executive director of BOMA Austin, consulted with the center Tuesday. Drummond told GlobeSt.com that he kept BOMA members apprised of advice from BOMA's headquarters throughout the day.

"We're going to be doing everything we can to make sure each building is safe an environment as can possibly be,"' Tait says. "We're not guaranteeing anybody any safety. Nobody can do that, obviously. You can't even guarantee that the biggest buildings in the country will stand.

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.