OnsiteIQ Provides Critical Project Insights Across ACRE’s Ever-Growing Real Estate Portfolio

ACRE is a real estate private equity and investment firm that specializes in investment, development, and management of quality multifamily housing. With extensive debt and equity capabilities and a strong focus on sustainability and responsible investment practices, ACRE continues to have a positive impact on residents, employees, and investors. The firm’s success is demonstrated through the completion of its fifth capital fundraise, an ever-growing development pipeline, and its $3.8 billion global portfolio. ACRE’s continued growth can also be attributed to its emphasis on leveraging innovative technology to identify inefficiencies and optimize operations.

With a development pipeline spanning across the United States, ACRE faces a significant challenge in effectively and efficiently managing its projects. In addition to collaborating with numerous developers with varying degrees of reporting standards, ACRE acts as a GP, Co-GP, LP and Lender on projects, further complicating operations. While day-to-day involvement varies, maintaining consistent construction performance and oversight is crucial. The team has faced difficulty ensuring the transparency and accountability needed for timely and effective construction execution, quality installation and safety/risk management of such a geographically disparate portfolio.

A critical part of its evolving Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) strategy, ACRE has undertaken several measures to chart its path to net-zero across its entire portfolio. Following a complete Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory, the team is pursuing the development and implementation of a decarbonization strategy that addresses GHG emissions stemming all areas of its operations, including construction and travel. To address this challenge and further support its real estate development team, ACRE’s Founding Partner Les Menkes, sought a solution to effectively monitor the progress of multiple projects.

Following a thorough examination of the technology marketplace, ACRE’s in-house development team contracted with OnsiteIQ to capture 360-degree imagery of their projects and track progress. Now, every project has a turn-key solution upon commencement, including a local data Capture Specialist walking the job site to capture critical project information. With comprehensive 360-degree scans taken weekly, ACRE can ‘walk’ the job site virtually and leverage OnsiteIQ’s time travel feature to monitor progress over time. This oversight has significantly increased the effectiveness of the development team by allowing them to confidently collaborate with project stakeholders using intuitive, up-to-date imagery of each site, and ultimately reduce project risk.

• Verifiable Progress Tracking
• Payment Application Verification
• Collaborating with Project Stakeholders
• Identifying and Mitigating Project Risk   

Verifiable Progress Tracking

OnsiteIQ enables ACRE’s development team to conduct virtual site ‘walks’ and examine progress at any time, increasing visibility for all stakeholders. OnsiteIQ’s project reporting is also standardized and rich compared to GC-provided data, which is often limited to a few curated images. 

 

Payment Application Verification 

With irrefutable time-stamped imagery provided by OnsiteIQ, ACRE has gained additional visibility into completed work, negating the need to rely on GC-provided data or in-person verification before issuing payments to project partners. This also provides a high level of comfort with oversight capabilities despite being hands-off in many cases. 

 

Collaborating with Project Stakeholders

In the case of ACRE’s South Florida project, the final phases of construction were halted due to a permanent power delay. Shortly after reviewing OnsiteIQ walkthrough data of the development site parcel, ACRE was able to collaborate with the General Contractor to rework an expedited delivery schedule without significant time spent on site.

 

Identifying and Mitigating Project Risk

With easily accessible snapshots of their development pipeline, ACRE can confidently forecast portfolio trends. The team is also afforded ample time to address efforts in the instance of a project falling behind schedule. 

The ability to walk any job site at any time, verify progress, support or refute pay applications, collaborate with project stakeholders, and identify and mitigate risk with OnsiteIQ’s solutions has substantially improved ACRE’s overall project operations. Leveraging OnsiteIQ across its portfolio has allowed ACRE to scale the capacity of its real estate development and construction lending teams and further its sustainability goals with decreased travel to and from job sites. ACRE continues to launch new projects, and OnsiteIQ’s ConstructionTech will be a big part of their success.