A couple of weeks ago we had a constructive brain storming activity with most of the employees in the northern branch. A lot of the criticism was towards our hours system called blueforce. It is a difficult program to operate but with a little playing around it becomes fairly easy. […]

Last week I had to phone screen over 30 applicants for our open positions. I called using my cell phone in a different room so I could hear the conversation. I left voicemails for 80% of the people I called and left them my desk phone to call back. By […]

Still no word on if we won the Hines bid for the properties of Wells Fargo Center, Mayo Clinic Square, Galleria, 50 South Sixth, International Plaza, U.S. Bank Plaza but It from the projects I worked on last week, it sounds like they want to switch to a flat fee […]

Last week, I had the pleasure of walking the International Plaza building in Bloomington. The purpose of these rounds is to meet with the property manager and discuss the progress of our cleaning staff. The building is around 230,000 Sq/Ft and it took about an hour walk the areas that […]

This week I was asked to complete a Weekly Report for our property. This report gives a sense on how our leasers are doing and can give us an idea of what’s going on with the market. If we have a lot of showings but not a lot of people […]

Got an alarming call from a tenants parents who said he hadn’t checked in with them for a few days. Had to go over to the apartment and knock on the door. I braced myself for no answer and a possible unpleasant call with the parents. Turns out he just […]

Yesterday was the 1st of the month and to welcome in our new residents we put a move-in package in all of the new move in’s apartments. We did this at our other property as well but at this one we directly put the packages in the apartments ourselves. I […]

Today I learned what a murphy bed was. We are going to be building a new building in Saint Paul and they asked me to look into murphy beds and other furniture ideas for small one bedroom apartments.

This morning I came into work and pulled up our emails and the first thing that I saw was pictures of a couple on an air mattress on the roof of our building. These same residents have had many noise complaints, late rent payments, and we have been suspicious of […]

Yesterday my boss and I visited with Rice Real Estate Company concerning the Medical Arts Building in downtown Minneapolis. Rice was looking for tag labor which is labor that is outside of the scope of work that is defined in our contract with them. This labor creates increased revenue for […]

Last week I had the pleasure to sit in on a bid meeting with Hines Real Estate Investments. Our 3 year contract with them had expired and it was time to put in a new bid to clean their buildings. We had the first meeting because of our past work […]

So we are a pet friendly community with many dogs on our property. Well, pit bulls aren’t usually allowed on our property because we have a few breed restrictions and this is one of them. We recently had a resident move in who has a pit bull as a service […]

Last week I was in a meeting with my boss, a city council member, and the EDC vice president. Last year we developed 104 lots in Grand Forks all together. The city wants us to double that number and get it to 200 next year. That will be a very […]

My Community Director has faced me with the challenge of creating a property event before I leave in a few weeks. My current top choices would be root beer float event or a grill out. I’m leaning towards a root beer float event so people can come in and grab […]