Theme park

The 30-acre business park in west London, designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership and developed by Stanhope, will see its first 2,000 tenants move into three buildings in January. A further 5,000 people will follow them into a further eight buildings, to be built over two years. With this in mind, the obvious strategy for the headhunters would be to search for senior facilities managers with bags of experience at running buildings and estate services at a major office site. But the obvious didn't happen.

At the request of Stanhope, the four shortlisted candidates were veterans of the hospitality industry, with experience in hospitality management roles. The successful candidate, Canadian Kay Chaston, had spent all 21 years of her career to date in hotel and restaurant management in North America. 'I'm a hotelier and I'm completely unfamiliar with the facilities business. This is also my first international post,' she confesses.

But Chaston, who started the job at the beginning of September, argues that despite her newness to facilities management, she is the right woman for the job.

'Chiswick Park is going to set a benchmark for business parks and facilities management in the 21st century,' she asserts. 'That's why they had to get someone in from outside to head it up – someone who could challenge the conventions of facilities management and think more imaginatively and creatively about it.'

She adds that one of the key ways in which Chiswick Park intends to distinguish itself from competitors is through high levels of service, a strategy she is comfortable with: 'Over the past 20 years, hotels have differentiated themselves from the competition through their levels of service. That is the aim at Chiswick Park and that's where my experience is really going to count, making sure – just like we did in hotels – that every day we deliver the best customer service to our tenants, or guests, as I like to call them.'

In the past few months, since she moved to the UK, Chaston says she has been surprised by poor service offered by many shops, transport companies and restaurants. Chaston will be flying the North American flag at the park: 'I think one of the best examples of supreme customer service in the world is the Walt Disney Company. At the Disneyparks, the level of service from people in customer-facing positions is spectacular, they take a huge pride in what they do. It's up to me to get the contractors and employees at Chiswick Park to be similarly passionate about the service we offer.'

While service levels are clearly going to be a crucial test of the scheme's USP, there are other elements that the developers would claim will make the park unique. One of the most important of these is the philosophy, imposed on the project by Stuart Lipton, chief executive of Stanhope, and architect Lord Rogers of Riverside, that the park should make the lives of the people working there more enjoyable. 'We literally want to take the hassle out of people's lives, saving them time and making them more efficient in their jobs,' Chaston says.

A park-wide intranet is also being developed, which will, Chaston argues, 'do the same job as a super efficient concierge in a five-star hotel'. The intranet will put tenants in direct contact with shops and services in the Chiswick area, so they will be able order deliveries and make bookings for whatever they need.

'For example, people will be able to arrange for their dry cleaning to be picked up. Or if they want to work through lunch, they will be able to get a take-away delivered to their office. And they will also be able to get their groceries sent here by the supermarket and videos from a rental store, so they don't have to waste time shopping after work,' says Chaston. 'The intranet will enable everything from booking theatre tickets and restaurants, to arranging taxis to pick up clients at the airport and ordering a bouquet of flowers to be sent to someone's wife.'

Over the coming few weeks, Chaston says she will screen the suppliers that will be hooked up to the intranet, so that only those offering the right quality of product and excellent customer service will be involved. She recognises that all

Just like in a hotel, I want to know every day whether my guests are happy, so that if they aren’t, I can do something about it

Kay Chaston

it would take is for someone's dry cleaning to go missing, or their groceries to be delivered late for the park's tenants to become disillusioned with the scheme.

In addition to the intranet service, effort is to be put into making life fun for tenants. A 1-acre entertainment area is being constructed at the heart of the park, where regular events will take place. 'We'll organise jazz concerts, cookery demonstrations, art exhibitions, food and wine pairing seminars and barbecues on a regular basis,' says Chaston.

And the first tenant moving into Chiswick Park is leisure centre operator Esporta, which will run a gym, swimming pool and dance studios in one of the central buildings. 'I'm not going to say who approached who in the first instance, but it was certainly a deliberate strategy of Stanhope's to get a leisure operator on the park,' she adds.

Physical features of the buildings include glass curtain walling allowing plentiful natural daylight. The space from floor to ceiling, at 10ft, is over a foot more than in standard offices making them feel spacious and airy.

A computerised weather station on the roof of each building, means that when it is sunny, blinds will automatically drop down over the windows at the precise angle required to screen out the rays.

As a basic standard, each of the park buildings are being connected to the services of four major telecommunications providers although 'tenants can also introduce additional providers if they want to,' comments Chaston.

And for those who want to work outside during their lunch breaks, there will be smart benches to sit on – park benches with laptop portals.

Chaston stresses that none of the standard building services such as cleaning, maintenance, engineering and security, have been forgotten either.

'What we've done with all the contractors before they pitch is to bring them to the park to show them what it's all about. We've then asked them to go away and work out how they can contribute to our vision and add value. We've found that these suppliers are almost reinventing their businesses and we're in the process of choosing the successful candidates,' she says.

Once the park is up and running its success will be measured by how satisfied the tenants are and this will be monitored on an ongoing basis – through satisfaction surveys on the intranet, as well as verbal questionnaires.