"So they see it as a powerful tool. The hunt is over!"

Sares Regis Group of Northern California: Deep Expertise

Since its founding in 1992, privately held Sares Regis Group of Northern California (SRGNC) has evolved to encompass commercial real estate development, project management, investment, and property management. Their deep expertise in every element of real estate development, ownership, and management has placed them in a strong position in a competitive market that doesn’t reward standing still. “We work and live in Silicon Valley,” says Michelle Green, VP of SRGNC. “It’s a very labor-tight market. We have to do a lot with a little, so we’re always looking to be as efficient as possible.”

Another side effect of developing buildings is the naturally occurring financial and emotional investment in the communities that are improved by the projects. The Sares Regis Education & Community Foundation is the publicfacing charitable arm through which SRGNC’s targeted giving moves the ball, addressing the needs of the towns and neighborhoods SRGNC calls home.

“I’m a proud board member of that foundation,” says Michelle Green with a broad smile. “As our charter says, we want to give where we live and work—we feel that it makes a stronger community and a stronger work environment.”

Transparency of an Open Platform

When it came to the Cadence project, SRGNC’s inclination towards cross-project transparency played to the platform’s strengths. “The whole idea of an open platform is that our subcontractors can feed into one side of the project while we’re working away on other parts of the same build—and without having all those duplicate entries,” Green says. “Procore’s open platform proved itself, literally moments after we implemented it. We like to think of Procore as our go-to place. We want all of our information to be in that one repository.”

Complete Ownership = Complete Access

As with all projects run through Procore, the densely informative details of the Cadence build—all the archived project data—belong to SRGNC. Forever. It seems natural that an owner should own the project data as well as the project itself, but that is not always the default arrangement. “Our CFO feels quite strongly about owning our own data,” VP Michelle Green says. “I’ve used a lot of other systems, and I think other software companies use the data-holding tactic to handcuff you to them—because they possess your project data.” For a multifaceted owner like SRGNC, the ramifications of project data ownership are powerfully practical. “Sares Regis holds a lot of our projects for life,” VP Michelle Green explains. “When we turn over from a construction standpoint, we’re turning it over to our property management and our warranty customer care team. They’re going to need to see the project’s submittals if something goes wrong. They need to know what those parts are—and that info is readily available to them. So they see it as a powerful tool. The hunt is over!” She pauses and smiles. “They really like that,” she says.