Crown Property Management: Innovation sparks the Crown team’s successes

On Blue Monday – the third Monday of January, said to be the most depressing day of the year – office tenants of Toronto-based Crown Property Management Inc. got to cuddle with adorable therapy dogs in their building lobbies. The initiative, now in its third year, was the brainchild of Melanie Miller, Crown’s manager of tenant experience.

Crown is a commercial real estate investment and property management company. Before joining the team as a summer student in 2016, Miller had never given much thought to the impact of good property management. Fast forward nine years and it’s now her central preoccupation.

“If you think about how many hours a day people spend in their office, it makes a big impact on their well-being. My favourite part of my role is being able to use my strengths to better the lives of our tenants,” she says. “Our team’s focus has always been on collaborating to create an excellent experience for our tenants.”

Anthony Kingsley, executive vice-president of operations, says Crown’s hands-on approach to building management and investments speaks to the company’s entrepreneurial spirit. It’s something that drew him to the firm two years ago from a larger real estate company, and that has remained constant as the company has continued to grow.

“Crown is an entrepreneurial business focused on adding value for our tenants and investors,” he says. “Those priorities unify our whole team.”

For its roughly 190 employees, that enterprising culture offers team members the opportunity to expand their roles to fit their unique skill sets, Kingsley says. “Our CEO likes to say we have unicorns in a lot of our roles because we encourage our team to think differently. Our structure allows for many opportunities for diversity of work throughout the company. That perspective is interesting and exciting for people – it gives us all runway to grow.”

Miller has experienced this first-hand. She got to leverage her own tech know-how when she spearheaded the development and rollout of a new tenant-focused app that allows anyone who works in a Crown building to book building amenities, learn about upcoming building and community events, and engage with property management.

“It’s very exciting to see something that was once an idea come to fruition and benefit the lives of our tenants,” she says.

The app is one way the company is investing in innovation and technology, Kingsley says. “We are focused on driving mobile building access, re-evaluating our tech stack for enhanced cross-team collaboration, and leveraging AI to propel our business.” But he says innovation goes beyond cutting-edge technology to the way employees work together.

“These technology advancements represent the full integration of all our teams, how we collaborate as a group and come up with innovative solutions,” he says. “It’s how we create a great culture for employees.”

Miller says she appreciates that she gets to work with colleagues from different departments, including sustainability, operations and marketing.

“Working across many teams gives me a holistic view that has allowed me to learn about the ins and outs of Crown,” she says. “In a larger company, that’s not always the case but Crown supports cross-departmental collaboration, which is one of our core values.”

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