LOS ANGELES—The future of mobility for urbanites is starting to take form. Commercial real estate veterans Aric Ohana and Ori Sagie have launched Envoy, a private ridesharing service for apartment dwellers. The company is working with apartment owners to provide temporary access to a car for tenants of a particular building. The platform is powered by an app that lets tenants reserve and unlock their car and pay quickly and easily. The cars, which include a Volkswagen Golf and a Fiat 500, are parked on site and are electric. Envoy will even provide the property owners with EV charging stations for the cars. Since launching, Envoy has received phenomenal feedback from owners that want this amenity in their apartment buildings. To find out more about the company, and how this reveals changes in our transportation and mobility culture, we sat down with Ohana and Sagie for an exclusive interview.

GlobeSt.com: What was the impetus for you to launch Envoy?

Aric Ohana: We were acquiring small multifamily properties in the Arlington, Texas area, adjacent to the university. We did a competitive analysis of the amenities that were in newer communities around us to decide what we wanted in our building. Now student housing is like hospitality. The amenities have gone from the typical gym and pool to movie rooms, tanning beds and poker rooms. We were shocked by these amenities. We asked ourselves what students actually need, and we kept coming back to this idea of a private car sharing service.

Ori Sagie: The Envoy platform was really created with a real estate mindset. We were seeing that the real estate sector is lacking the infrastructure, technology and operation for car sharing.

GlobeSt.com: How important was the app and technology for the company when you were conceiving the idea?

Ohana: The app is definitely important, but the smart phone is even more important. It gives you all of the tools you need to utilize our services. The app was very important from the beginning, but more important to us was a minimal impact on building operations. We are coming from the operations side of real estate and we knew that any solution we came up with couldn't affect the current operations of these properties. The idea of creating this ecosystem of mobility was the ultimate goal. The app is great for the registration portion because we can easily collect information from the individual.

GlobeSt.com: Do you consider ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft your competitors?

Ohana: We actually think that they complement our services. You would use a ridesharing system for different things than you would use our cars. Ridesharing is great, but if you are stopping at multiple stops, it can become expensive. If you are caring things with you, it can become very difficult because you have nowhere to put your things. We think that there is a need for both of them. There is no one size fits all for mobility. There needs to be a matrix of mobility solutions to get around town, and this can play a key part in people's lifestyles.

GlobeSt.com: Could this amenity help to reduce parking requirements in apartment buildings?

Ohana: This is an amenity, and it is a way that you can have a competitive edge over the same size development with the same amenities next door. We are also working with developers to try to reduce parking requirements and parking ratios. Experts say that every shared vehicle takes 11 vehicles off the road. If a developer can go to a municipality and present their development with this car sharing amenity, that might be something that the city would agree to. We have met with Culver City, Santa Monica, and Los Angeles to present our plan. There are different ways that the city can help engage with developers to help new mobility platforms that will relieve congestion. Overwhelmingly, we have been hearing from the cities that we have been speaking to that it does make sense and we do see this as the future of development and there should be incentives for developers to implement mobility options within their property.

GlobeSt.com: What is the cost for apartment owners?

Ohana: It does depend on the location of the property and who the utility provider is. We are able to get rebates for the chargers in many cases, but typically, there is a zero dollar set-up cost. That means that we install the chargers at no cost to the owner, and we assign the vehicles so that those cars become community vehicles. Our revenue is generated from the users of the vehicle, but we do share the revenue with the property owners. So, not only is this an amenity that costs almost nothing to implement.

GlobeSt.com: This could be used with many property types. Are you focusing on apartments, or other sectors as well?

Ohana: We are focused on all property types, but there are more apartment buildings. We are seeing a lot more traction in the apartment world, but we are meeting with larger companies that have properties in multiple sectors?

GloveSt.com: What are you goals for the company in the first year?

Ohana: We have that ability to employ 100 vehicles right now, and we are hoping by the end of the year, we will have all 100 cars in circulation, which will probably be about 50 properties.

Instant Insights /

The Future of Urban Mobility for Apartment Living

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