The Client
Edinburgh House Estates (EHE) is a privately-owned property company focused on imaginative, innovative, and proactive management of its assets. Having down sized its portfolio in the UK during the mid-2000’s, Edinburgh House Estates has moved its investment focus to Germany.
Currently Edinburgh House owns/manages circa. €400m /£350m of assets in both Germany and the UK respectively. Of this EHE focus is strongly on the UK with an agreed disposal strategy for Germany.
The UK portfolio currently consists of a nation-wide distribution of assets with a sector focus on retail and in particular 17 Shopping Centres.
The Brief
Jonathan initially contacted Ace with the sole goal of relocating some of his newly inherited server equipment. EHE had already been in talks with another company who they intended to use for moving the office IT and furniture. However, after speaking with Jonathan and quoting on the server relocation it was made apparent to all that it would not only be far more cost effective but would streamline the entire process by using a single contractor.
On Thursday the 14th of December one of our project managers visited Edinburgh House to complete a site survey in order to get a better understanding of the environment and the equipment we’d be required to migrate.
We were now required to move 10 pieces of server equipment (2 phased approach), all of the staff’s IT (30 x PC’s relocation), their personal belongings and approximately 50 pieces of furniture (Filing cabinets, large cupboards, glass tables etc). Ahead of the migration we were also able to assist Jonathan and sent him a couple of Netgear POE switches in order to allow him to configure the communications equipment at the new location
The Relocation
On the 5th of December the Ace team (comprising of 1 project manager, 1 head engineer and 5 engineers) arrived at Fitzrovia Square for 9AM. Priority was to de-rack, pack & relocate the first load of server equipment so whilst the head engineer began packing this the rest of the team began moving and loading the 130 LC3 (user) crates in to our first vehicle.
Once completed the flight case packed with servers was also loaded in to the vehicle, the two engineers accompanied by Jonathan then headed over to the WeWorks office situated in Paddington and began re-racking the equipment.
Whilst this was happening the rest of the team began de-commissioning and packing the PC’s into IT1 PC crates. After about half an hour the crates had been packed and the engineers could begin moving all the furniture and crates to the second vehicle.
Three of the team then headed over to Paddington whilst two of the team remained to dismantle the remaining furniture and move it down to the front lobby.
Upon arrival the second team met with the server crew and started unloading the LC3 crates into the loading bay, unfortunately the team then hit our first stumbling block. Between the loading bay and Edinburgh House’s new office up on the 4th floor there were 6 key pass-controlled doors as well as all the lifts also requiring a pass before they would move.
Between the entire team of seven we were only given a single key card which immediately began holding the team up, because WeWork offer hot desks, they won’t issue pass-keys unless you’re a member of staff. This roughly doubled the time in which the team were required to be on site, despite this the team endeavoured to complete as much as possible that day.
Eventually the team got all of the equipment up to the fourth floor and were able to travel back to Fitzrovia to load the remaining furniture.
The team finally managed to get all of the furniture in by about 8PM by which point it was decided that because of projects due to commence early the following morning it would be easier for the team to return on the Sunday to finish the desktop rollout, re-commissioning of the IT and then complete the relevant display and network testing.
The following week we returned to Fitzrovia Square to complete the final phase and collect all the remaining IT equipment and cables for disposal.
Result
Edinburgh House Estates project was successfully completed on time leaving them ready to begin work on Monday morning. Despite the massive set back with regards to access in the new facility the team worked incredibly hard to achieve the end result.
Feedback
“Despite some set-backs (no fault of our own or EHE) we were delighted to have assisted Edinburgh House in their physical relocation and look forward to assisting them with their next office move.”
Working with Ace was made as easy as possible for us from the beginning. We started with what was going to be a purely technical move, impressed by Ace’s in depth understanding of the risks and issues surrounding data equipment moves and upon realising Ace could actually deal with the entire office move for us, they took over the whole project with nothing but willingness and professionalism.
Joe conducted comprehensive site visits, and offered to take on the entire office move project without ever putting pressure on and showing total competency and logistical expertise both with the server and network equipment and office move.
We received a detailed quote within a matter of hours and were very reassured that everything we had to move, from servers to glass coffee tables, were in Ace’s safe hands. They saved us the hassle of having to split the tasks between multiple contractors, which in turn cut our costs.
Testimonial
On the day of the move, every member of the Ace team were professional, polite, and totally uncomplaining, despite working a 12-hour shift and facing a few logistical hurdles along the way. The end result was extremely impressive and we cannot recommend Joe and his team enough, whether it’s for only IT removals, or for the overseeing of an entire office move.
