Mixed-Use Buildings

For the purposes of this chapter, a mixed-use building is a building that houses commercial offices, apartments, residences, and hotel rooms in separate sections of the same high-rise structure (in contrast to low-to-mid-rise buildings located on a large campus-style site).♦

Hotel-residences are another type of mixed-use occupancy. “The hotel residences trend is notably different from its predecessors such as fractional/time share hotel units, which are not wholly owned, or condo hotels, which are wholly owned hotel rooms without, for example, kitchens. Not only do hotel residences have kitchens and everything else an owner would expect in a typical abode, they also include amenities such as maid and room service, plus restaurants, spas and gyms…. Typically, [these] residences are on the top floors of hotels, reachable by controlled-access elevators, but only make up a fraction of the building.”1

Mixed-use buildings usually “include parking facilities which may be open, enclosed, above- or below-ground, and often directly beneath or adjacent to the [office building] itself. These arrangements may require special types of fire protection, and the building codes may require fire separations.”2

To systematically examine the security and fire life safety of mixed-use buildings, this chapter addresses the following areas: occupancy characteristics; assets, threats, vulnerabilities, and countermeasures; security programs; and emergency management.

Occupancy Characteristics

Because a mixed-use building can contain commercial offices, apartments, residences, and hotel rooms in sections of the same building, the mixed-use building itself displays the characteristics of each of these occupancies (as explained in Chapter 9 [“Office Buildings”], Chapter 10 [“Hotel Buildings”], and Chapter 11 [“Residential and Apartment Buildings”]).

Assets, Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Countermeasures

A risk assessment (as detailed in Chapter 4) is an important tool for developing an appropriate security and fire life safety program for a mixed-use building. A “risk assessment analyzes the threat, asset value, and vulnerability to ascertain the level of risk for each critical asset against each applicable threat. Inherent in this is the likelihood or probability of the threat occurring and the consequences of the occurrence. Thus, a very high likelihood of occurrence with very small consequences may require simple[,] low cost mitigation measures [countermeasures], but a very low likelihood of occurrence with very grave consequences may require more costly and complex mitigation measures. The risk assessment should provide a relative risk profile. High-risk combinations of assets against associated threats, with identified vulnerability, allow prioritization of resources to implement mitigation measures.”3

Key steps in the process involve examining the assets, the threats against the assets, the vulnerabilities of the assets, and the countermeasures or mitigation measures that can be used to address identified vulnerabilities of the assets (within the confines of risk management). These areas are now examined for mixed-use buildings.

Assets

Tangible assets include the people using the facility;♦ business and personal property contained within the office, hotel, and apartment occupancies; and the building itself, its fittings, and its equipment. Building equipment includes electrical, water, gas, mechanical, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning, lighting, elevator, escalator, communication, security, and fire life safety systems. In addition, there are other assets within each of the occupancies:

• • Office buildings. Telephones, computers, printers, typewriters, fax machines, photocopiers, audio-visual equipment, and general-use items (coffee machines, vending machines, refrigerators, microwaves, ovens, and furniture), and sometimes antiques and works of art, cash, and negotiable instruments. In addition, there may be assets in cafeterias, restaurants, retail shops, newsstands, copy/print services, and other common area facilities for office workers and the public.
• • Hotel buildings. Telephones, computers, printers, fax machines, photocopiers, audio-visual equipment (including televisions in guest rooms, foyers, restaurants, and bars; and equipment for use in meeting rooms), general-use items (coffee machines, refrigerators, microwaves, furniture, and common area vending machines), and sometimes antiques and works of art, cash, and negotiable instruments (particularly in the reception, restaurant, and retail areas). In addition, there may be assets in kitchens, laundries and dry cleaning facilities, fitness centers, saunas, swimming pools, spas/hot tubs, tennis and racquetball courts, dining areas, restaurants, retail shops, newsstands, business centers, and other facilities for guest services.
• • Residential and apartment buildings. Kitchen appliances, furniture and furnishings, entertainment equipment, antiques and works of art, cash and negotiable instruments, telephones, computers, printers, and general-use items for daily living—and assets in common area vending machines, laundry facilities, fitness centers, saunas, swimming pools, spas/hot tubs, dining areas, restaurants, retail shops, newsstands, and entertainment and business centers.

Also, vehicles parked in the building's parking garage are tangible assets.

Intangible assets include the livelihood of building users; intellectual property and information stored in paper files, reference books, microfilm, and within computer systems and peripherals; and the reputation and status of the mixed-use building and its tenants.

Threats

The types of security and fire life safety threats to mixed-use building assets are outlined in Chapter 3. Briefly they include the following:

• •Security threats to people: assault, assault and battery, kidnapping, manslaughter, mayhem, murder, robbery, sex offenses (including rape, sexual harassment, and lewd behavior), and stalking.
• •Security threats to property and information: aberrant behavior, arson, burglary, cyberattack, disorderly conduct, espionage, larceny, sabotage, theft, trespass, and vandalism. In addition, there may be the disruption of building utilities such as water; electrical power; natural gas; sewer; heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC); telecommunications; security; and life safety systems. Some security threats may involve terrorism.
• •Security threats to people and property: bombs, chemical and biological weapons, civil disturbance, fires, hazardous materials, natural disasters, and nuclear attack.
• • Life safety threats: aircraft collisions; bombs and bomb threats; daredevils, protestors, and suicides; elevator and escalator incidents; fires and fire alarms; hazardous materials, chemical and biological weapons, and nuclear attack; kidnappings and hostage situations; labor disputes, demonstrations, and civil disorder; medical emergencies; natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, heat waves, storms, and floods and landslides); contractible diseases (pandemic influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and tuberculosis); power failures; slip-and-falls; stalking and workplace violence; traffic accidents; and water leaks.

Fire Risk in Mixed-Use Buildings

Fire is an ever-present risk in high-rise mixed-use buildings. In discussing fire risk,♦ it is helpful to analyze fire incident data♦♦ for the four property classes—office buildings, hotels and motels,♦♦♦ apartment buildings, and hospitals (and other facilities that care for the sick)—that account for the majority of high-rise building fires.4 Even though this data pertains only to the United States, it is worth considering because it includes the types of commercial buildings that are addressed in this book (namely, office, hotel, residential and apartment, and mixed-use buildings).

A study by Dr. John Hall, Jr., of the National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA) Fire Analysis and Research Division, using statistics from the U.S. Fire Administration's National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS), stated that from 1987 to 1991, office buildings, hotels and motels, apartment buildings, and facilities that care for the sick averaged 13,800 high-rise building fires per year and associated annual losses of 74 civilian deaths, nearly 720 civilian injuries, and $79 million in direct property damage. However, “most high-rise building fires and associated losses occur in apartment buildings.”5 Hall added that for this period,

• •Only a small share of high-rise building fires spread beyond the room of origin, let alone the floor of origin.
• •In high-rise buildings [office buildings and hotels and motels], electrical distribution system fires rank first in causes of fire-related property damage.6

The most recent published study by Hall shows that “in 2002,♦ high-rise buildings in these four property classes combined had 7,300 reported structure fires and associated losses of 15 civilian deaths, 300 civilian injuries, and $26 million in direct property damage.”7 He concluded that “these statistics generally show a declining fire problem over the nearly two decades covered”8 and, similar to his previous findings, “most high-rise building fires and associated losses occur in apartment buildings.”9 He further commented pertaining to the latter, “this may seem surprising, but it shouldn't. Homes dominate the U.S. fire problem so completely that it is always a good bet that any newly examined fire problem, unless it is one that cannot occur in homes, will have its largest share in homes.”10 However, Hall did caution that, due to a number of factors (one being lower participation in national fire incident reporting in recent years11 ), “the patterns shown in data available so far should be given limited weight.”12

Vulnerabilities

Weaknesses that can make an asset (in this case, a mixed-use building and its operations) susceptible to loss or damage13 will largely depend on the building itself and the nature of its operations. A vulnerability assessment is required to “evaluate the potential vulnerability of the critical assets against a broad range of identified threats/hazards.”14

Countermeasures

Mitigation measures to counteract identified vulnerabilities of an asset to a threat may consist of security systems and equipment (see Chapter 5), fire life safety systems and equipment (see Chapter 6), security personnel (see Chapter 7), security policies and procedures (see the next section, “Security Programs”), and emergency management (see the later section, “Emergency Planning”). These countermeasures need to be looked at in terms of security design. “Security design involves the systematic integration of design, technology, and operation…. The process of designing security into architecture is known as Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED).”15 As mentioned previously, the key to selecting appropriate countermeasures for a particular facility is for a risk assessment to be conducted. (See Chapter 4.)

Because fire is a risk in high-rise buildings, the following is noted regarding their fire protection features: mixed-use buildings that have properly designed, installed, operated, tested, and maintained automatic fire detection and suppression systems, and other fire protection features—automatic closing fire doors for compartmentation and maintenance of the integrity of occupant escape routes, and automatic smoke control systems to restrict the spread of smoke—do have the necessary early warning systems to quickly detect fires and warn occupants of their presence, as well as the necessary automated sprinkler systems to quickly extinguish a fire in its early stages. One of the key issues here is the presence or absence of sprinklers.

In the study mentioned in the previous section, “Threats,” Hall commented on fire protection features in high-rise buildings by stating that,

In several instances, the value of these fire protection features [i.e., automatic extinguishing systems (primarily sprinklers), fire detection equipment, and fire-resistive construction] may be seen clearly in a statistical analysis of 1994-1998 loss per fire averages, with and without the protection. For high-rise buildings, automatic extinguishing systems are associated with a reduction of at least 88% in the rate of deaths per 1,000 fires for each of the three property classes (excluding office buildings, which had no deaths recorded in NFIRS [National Fire Incident Reporting System] in high-rise buildings) and at least 44% in the average dollar loss per fire for each of the four property classes. Fire detection equipment is associated with a reduction of 55% in the rate of deaths per 1,000 fires in apartment buildings. Fire-resistive construction is associated with a reduction of 30% in average dollar loss per fire in apartment buildings. This probably is produced not directly by the construction but indirectly by the compartmentation features that tend to be used with fire-resistive construction, features that keep more fires smaller and so keep property losses lower. (Note, though, that compartmentation practices probably vary more by type of occupancy than by type of construction.) Because high-rise buildings often use all three systems, it is very difficult to try to separate their effects on loss rates, and many rates are very sensitive to deaths or large dollar loss in individual incidents.

Automatic extinguishing systems and fire detection equipment and the compartmentation features associated with fire-resistive construction all contribute to fire protection by helping to keep fires small, with extinguishing and construction doing so directly and detection doing so by providing early warning that can lead to earlier manual suppression….

Finally, the effectiveness of these fire protection systems and features and their widespread use in high-rise buildings mean that when people are killed in high-rise residential fires, they are much more likely to have been close to the fire, where it is more likely that fatal injury could occur before [the] fire could be stopped or blocked by these systems and features.16

These comments are not directly made about mixed-use buildings, but because such buildings may house offices, apartments, residences, and hotel rooms in separate sections of the same building, they are appropriate.

Security Programs

Security programs for mixed-use buildings and for individual tenants involve policies, rules and regulations, and procedures designed “to prevent unauthorized persons from entering, to prevent the unauthorized removal of property, and to prevent crime, violence, and other disruptive behavior.”17 Security's overall purpose is to protect life and property.

Each occupancy—office, hotel, and residential—will have its own security program, as addressed in the respective chapters—Chapter 9,“Office Buildings,” Chapter 10, “Hotel Buildings,” and Chapter 11, “Residential and Apartment Buildings.” However, the building owner and management will develop a master security plan for the building itself.

Some of the factors♦ that need to be considered include the following:

• •How will access control of people be handled? What role will building security play in screening pedestrians before allowing them to enter the building? For example, will each of the three occupancies have a separate lobby and reception area, and will there be separate elevator banks dedicated to each occupancy?
• •How will movement of people between the different occupancies be handled? Will there be a separate reception area for each occupancy?
• •Will there be a building-wide access control system for the building? Who will maintain the system? Will each occupancy issue its own access cards?
• •How will vehicle access to the parking garage be handled? For example, will each of the three occupancies have separate parking entrances and areas for parking vehicles?
• •How will property moving in and out of the building be controlled? For example, will each of the three occupancies have separate loading docks and messenger centers for the handling of property, or will there be a central loading dock and messenger center? How will couriers and messengers be processed for entry to perform deliveries and pickups from the individual occupancies in the building? How will lost and found property be handled? How will trash and rubbish removal from the individual occupancies in the building be handled?
• •Will building security staff conduct mobile patrols in each of the occupancies? During these patrols, if issues are encountered, to whom does building security report these matters?
• •Will each occupancy handle security incidents that occur within its own occupancy, or will building emergency staff be required to respond? If the former, what type of incidents must be reported to building security staff? How soon after the incident must it be reported? What type of incidents will require an additional response by building security?
• •Will escorts of occupants be handled by the individual occupancy's security personnel or by building security staff?
• •Will each occupancy have its own separate security and fire command centers? Will the building's main command center be fully integrated with these centers and able to always monitor their security and fire life safety systems? If so, during an emergency, can the building's main command center override these systems and operate them?

These and many other issues will need to be addressed for the specific building in question. In a mixed-use facility, it is critical that the security master plan includes a clear delineation of security and fire life safety responsibilities for each of the individual occupancies and is developed in cooperation with the management of each of them.

Emergency Planning

For a building owner or manager to effectively manage an incident that constitutes an emergency in such a mixed-use building, it is critical to plan ahead. Each occupancy—office, hotel, and residential—will have its own building emergency management plan, as addressed in the respective chapters—Chapter 9,“Office Buildings,” Chapter 10, “Hotel Buildings,” and Chapter 11, “Residential and Apartment Buildings.” However, the building owner and management will develop a master building emergency management plan for the building itself.

The building emergency staff organization that will carry out emergency response procedures for the building will need to be clearly defined. A typical staff organization for a mixed-use building is outlined in Figure 12.1 . This sample depicts the mixed-use building fire safety director as reporting to mixed-use building management. However, it is noted that the authority that has jurisdiction in many cities will empower the overall building fire safety director with full authority to evacuate a building, without the need to obtain approval from building owners or managers.

Figure 12-1.

Sample mixed-use building emergency staff organization.

Each unit of the building emergency staff organization will have duties and responsibilities that have been developed and tailored to the specific needs of the building and to each type of emergency it may be required to handle. These duties and responsibilities must be defined, including the responsibilities of each occupancy's emergency team and how it will coordinate emergency actions with the building's emergency team. Only then can there be a coordinated and effective response to each emergency situation.

One crucial issue to be addressed is how the evacuation of occupants will be handled, including whether occupants will be permitted to evacuate from one occupancy to the adjacent one below (a possible solution is to have a designated refuge floor between each occupancy where evacuating occupants can go). Also, who will have the authority to initiate such an evacuation? Other important items will include the handling of disabled/physically impaired occupants, and the training, instructing, and testing of the preparedness of emergency personnel.

It is important that as many as possible of those who will be involved in the execution of the emergency management plan participate in the planning process. Those concerned should include the emergency staff for each occupancy and possibly public officials (such as those from the local fire and law enforcement agencies) and building management staff from neighboring buildings. Public officials may require a particular format for the plan itself.

It cannot be stressed enough that every site and building is different, and emergency plans vary according to local laws and the requirements of the authority that has jurisdiction. It is up to the management of each mixed-use building to develop the emergency management plan most appropriate to its needs.

Summary

• •In a mixed-use facility, it is critical for the security master and building emergency management plan to include a clear delineation of security and fire life safety responsibilities for each of the individual occupancies and for the plan to be developed in cooperation with the management of the individual occupancies.
• •The purpose of establishing, implementing, and maintaining a building emergency management plan is to provide for the safety of all building occupants.

Key Terms

Apartment. “An individual dwelling unit, usually on a single level and often contained in a multi unit building or development.”18

Apartment building. “A building containing more than one dwelling unit.”19 “Apartment buildings are those structures containing three or more living units with independent cooking and bathroom facilities, whether designated as apartment houses, … condominiums, or garden apartments.”20 See also condominium and residential building.

Bathroom. A room that contains a bathtub and/or shower and usually a washbasin or washbowl (i.e., a lavatory) and a toilet.

Campus. “A site on which the buildings of an organization or institution are located.”21

Condominium. “A multiple – unit structure in which the units and pro rata shares of the common areas are owned individually; a unit in a condominium property. Also, the absolute ownership of an apartment or unit, generally in a multi – unit building, which is defined by a legal description of the air space the unit actually occupies plus an undivided interest in the common elements that are owned jointly with other condominium unit owners.”22 Residential condominiums are commonplace in today's society.

Guest. In hotel buildings it is a person who “lodges, boards, or receives refreshment for pay (as at a hotel … or restaurant) whether permanently or transiently.”23 In residential and apartment buildings, a guest is a “nonresident who stays in a resident's private dwelling (with that resident's consent) for one or more nights.”24 A guest is sometimes known as a patron.

Hotel. “The term ‘hotel’ is an all – inclusive designation for facilities that provide comfortable lodging and generally, but not always food, beverage, entertainment, a business environment, and other ‘away from home’ services.”25

Hotel-residences. “Hotel residences have kitchens and everything else an owner would expect in a typical abode, they also include amenities such as maid and room service, plus restaurants, spas and gyms…. Typically, [these] residences are on the top floors of hotels.”26

Mixed-use building. A building that may contain commercial offices, apartments, residences, and hotel rooms in separate sections of the same building. Hotel-residences are another type of mixed-use occupancy.

Office building. A “structure designed for the conduct of business, generally divided into individual offices and offering space for rent or lease.”27

Patron. See guest.

Residence. “A temporary or permanent dwelling place, abode, or habitation to which one intends to return as distinguished from a place of temporary sojourn or transient visit.”28

Residential building. A building containing separate residences where a person may live or regularly stay. Each residence contains independent cooking and bathroom facilities and may be known as an apartment, a residence, a tenement, or a condominium. See also apartment building.

Security master plan. The strategic plan for the protection of a facility's assets (people, property, and information). “The ultimate goal of good strategic planning is to lay out specific long-range plan objectives and then devise short-term action plans to meet each major objective (or goal).”29 This plan may or may not be formally documented. Sometimes it is called the security plan or the security operations plan.

Visitor. In office buildings it is a nonoccupant who spends time at the building. In hotel buildings, it is a nonguest who visits a hotel guest or uses the hotel's facilities (such as meeting rooms, conference facilities, recreational facilities, restaurants, bars, a casino, or a discotheque). In residential and apartment buildings, it is a “nonresident who spends time at the home of a resident (with that resident's consent) but does not stay overnight.”30 In a mixed-use building, it could be all the preceding depending on the nature of its occupancies. See also guest.