AAKC Crystal Merit Awards

It was quite the celebration on Saturday evening in Kansas City, as the Apartment Association of Kansas City (AAKC) handed out their Crystal Merit Awards at the 21 annual gala. Held at the Kansas City Convention Center, over 1,000 people were on hand for the event, which showcased and highlighted the best of of the multifamily industry in Kansas City and the surrounding area.

Flaherty & Collins Properties and one of it’s newest communities – The Heights at Linden Square – walked away with three awards on the night following 19 nominations.

Our winners:

  • Website of the Year – The Heights at Linden Square
  • Property Management Team of the Year – Under 250 Units – The Heights at Linden Square
  • Marketing Director of the Year – Brian Moore, Flaherty & Collins Properties

“It was an honor to be nominated, so it is certainly humbling to actually receive the award,” said Brian Moore, Vice President of Marketing & Communications for Flaherty & Collins Properties. “We’ve got a great team out here at The Heights and with our new projects coming to Kansas City this year in Union Riverfront Berkley and the planned groundbreaking of The Yards, we’re excited about Flaherty & Collins Properties presence here in Kansas City.”

The AAKC has 811 member communities and organizations, with over 80,511 units represented.

Breaking Ground at The Breakwater

A swarm of Flaherty & Collins Properties development, construction and marketing team members descended on New Albany for the groundbreaking of our newest project, The Breakwater.

You can check our more coverage of this exciting project and details here.

But what you came to the F&C blog for is the behind the scenes stuff, right?

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Our road crew got an early start and prepped our stage show quite well.

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Our Marketing Team, Derek Miller and Jaime Young, made the trip! Derek flew the drone for construction aerials and took all our awesome pictures of the event, while Jaime live-tweeted the proceedings.

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And here’s one of Derek’s aerial shots of the project site:

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Flaherty & Collins Properties CEO David Flaherty spoke about what the project will do for the City of New Albany and its residents. Among the highlights, a projected $30 million economic impact over the next five years and the creation of over 200 new construction jobs, not to mention the roughly 300 new residents that will be brought to downtown New Albany.

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Our Marketing & Communications Director, Brian Moore, played Master of Ceremonies for the event and introduced our wonderful guest speakers.

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We were joined by the City of New Albany Mayor, Jeff Gahan, who spoke of the vision it takes to put a project like this together.

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A good crowd – and the media – attended the ceremony to find out more about this project.

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We’re excited for this project to begin and see what it looks like in roughly 18 months!

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Flaherty & Collins Properties Raises over $3,700, Donates Goods to Mozel Sanders Foundation

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Today, the Flaherty & Collins Properties team held it’s annual fundraiser in support of the Mozel Sanders Foundation Thanksgiving Day campaign. Through the efforts of its nearly 450 employees, F&C raised $3,794.71.

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This year, Flaherty & Collins Properties held a Pie Eating Contest and Bake-Off event on
to serve as the basis of a donation to the Mozel Sanders Foundation in support of the foundation’s annual Thanksgiving Day campaign. 
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Participants were from all over our department areas: Grante Manning (Accounting), Andrew Moster (IT, KSMC Consulting), Ida McCombs (HR), Brandon Prince (Intern), Brian Moore (Marketing & Communications), Amber Woods Maintenance Team, Kim Whitaker (Compliance), Chris Kirles (Construction).
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Marketing & Communications Director, Brian Moore, celebrated his win with a tasty medal (he’d had enough pie!).
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Next, we held a bake-off auction, led by our esteemed resident auctioneer, Gavin Greene. Lisa Thomas’ (Accounting) cheesecake pulled in over $100 alone!
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Construction President Chris Kirles enjoying a moment with RPM Alma Slash.
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Flaherty & Collins Properties, which has donated to various areas of the Mozel Sanders Foundation for many years, had been collecting  non-perishable goods, personal hygiene products and household cleaning supplies over the past six weeks to help support Mozel Sanders’ efforts in this area during the holiday season and beyond.
Westlake (Indianapolis) donated the most goods – a full truckload!
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Judges LaKeisha Jackson, Lynne Petersen and Stephanie Sanders were impressed with the baked goods and awarded trophies to our winners:
1st Place – Terry Corley (Accounting)

 

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2nd Place – Bruce Mullen (Construction)

 

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3rd Place – Ryan Cronk (well, his wife, Kelly)

 

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The Foundation distributes more than 30,000 pounds of these items each month of the year.In 2014, over 2,000 volunteers served over 40,000 meals from 45 locations. In 2013, the average cost per meal was $4.50.
Flaherty & Collins President Jerry Collins and CEO David Flaherty presented a check to Stephanie Sanders of the Mozel Sanders Foundation. 

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Many thanks to all who helped make it happen, and to the Indiana Apartment Association (IAA) for letting us hold the event indoors! And now, Jill Herron and her planning team are in a sugar-induced coma!

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Nest Best Thing

nest_smallThe Depot at Nickel Plate welcomed its first residents earlier this month and as the project marches toward completion over the next few months, residents and guests will be delighted at the amenities presented on the property. From the awesome game room to the Fitness OnDemand and clubhouse area, The Depot is packed with great features and amenities.

It is also a tech-savvy community, highlighted by the Nest® thermostats and pre-wired Bluetooth® Surround Sound in select units.

Brian Moore, Marketing & Communications Director at Flaherty & Collins Properties, installed a Nest thermostat in his home over the holiday weekend for those who are curious what the fuss is all about. Below is his “Nest Best Thing” Journal.

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If you are like me, perhaps you’ve thought that thermostats are just thermostats. They exist to alter the temperature in your home depending on what suits you.

And they were – until technology recently introduced a device that learns what suits you without you ever needing to touch the thermostat again. Nest is much more than a slick looking gadget with cool colors and no “buttons.” Nest learns what your preferred temperatures are for your humble abode, day or night, home or away.

Add in the phone app and you can control Nest – and the temperature of your home – from any where in the world. So, leaving for a trip and forgot to turn down the heat or air conditioning? Just open the app and adjust. Coming home from vacation and don’t want to walk into a cold house or a stuffy room? Same thing – just open the app and your home will feel just the way you want upon arrival.

The installation process was fairly simple. There are videos posted on the Nest website, as well as printed directions for even the most non-handy of home dwellers (I fall into the latter). Within 20 – 30 minutes, we had successfully removed our old thermostat and installed Nest. The device connects to your WiFi and automatically downloads the latest software updates.

From there, you simply begin adjusting the temperature to your desire. Over the next few weeks, Nest will remember when you changed the temperature and what you changed it to. Say you like it a little cooler in the middle part of the day because you’re moving about and the natural sunlight is warming your home, so between 10am and 8pm, the temperature is 68 degrees. But you want it a little warmer before bed, as everyone is relaxing about. You up the temperature to 70 between the hours of 8pm and 10pm. And since you’re a person who knows the body sleeps better at cooler temps, you bump it down again to 68 degrees before bed. Lastly, you don’t like waking up to a cold house and getting ready for your day, so you up the temperature to 71 degrees.

Within a week or so, Nest will remember all this information and store it to create a customized schedule for your home, called Nest SenseTM .  You can repeat the same process when the weather changes each season by simply adjusting the temperatures again for a few days to a week. So when summer rolls around, you could wake up to 68 degrees and go to bed at 72 – Nest has got you covered.

If this part sounds like work, rest assured, Nest thought of people like me when it comes to adjusting the thermostat. Who wants to walk into the dining room to adjust the thermostat four times a day to get started? The solution is the app – you can adjust it from upstairs in the bedroom or from the garage. You can adjust it on your flight back from Hawaii or that business trip to Chicago. You could adjust it from a friend that lives 20 minutes away.

My wife notoriously decides that it is either too hot or too cold in the house after we have long settled in to bed, the lights are out and I am nearly asleep. Within the first several hours of installing the Nest thermostat and downloading the app, I avoided getting up and trudging downstairs to alter the temperature of our house by a single degree.

I just opened the app, raised the temperature to her preferred state and then sat the phone back on my nightstand. Presto! My wife was warm and I didn’t have to leave the room.

What we’ve found thus far is that Nest creates ease when it comes to adjusting and maintaining the temperature of your home.

Oh, and Nest can save you money on your heating/cooling bills as well – an average of 20% according to the Nest website. Nest also provides other functions, like reminding you a filter needs changed and monitoring your heat pump.