Powered by SwiftConnect, Bridge Commercial Real Estate Introduces Employee Badge in Apple Wallet for Corporate Employees and Tenants

National rollout will launch at Atlanta's Lenox Park, enabling tenants to access property and amenities with iPhone or Apple Watch

ATLANTA, March 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Bridge Investment Group's (Bridge) commercial brokerage subsidiary Bridge Commercial Real Estate introduced contactless access enablement through employee badges in Apple Wallet at its 1277 Lenox Park office in Atlanta. Authorized users can now easily access flex office spaces, tenant floors and amenity spaces using their iPhone or Apple Watch.

Bridge's Lenox Park location addresses a growing shift among leading companies that are transitioning from traditional corporate office space for more nimble and flexible layouts that boost collaboration and employee engagement, while reducing overall real estate costs. By leveraging their iPhone or Apple Watch for building access, users will have easier ways to navigate in the new way of work and flex office spaces. 

"Our move to put employee badges in Apple Wallet is a transformative step in our long-term strategy to enable self-service, unfettered access to office and amenity spaces for the benefits of our tenants across our portfolio of Class A buildings nationwide," said Mark Ferris, chief operating officer at Bridge Commercial Real Estate. "We selected SwiftConnect based on its leadership in connected access enablement and its open approach to integrating with a broad range of building and suite-level management systems. This allows us to operate our diverse environment of building access solutions as a unified network rather than a portfolio of disparate assets."

Employee badges in Apple Wallet are provisioned from the BridgeEngage app using SwiftConnect AccessCloud, which seamlessly brings together the building and business solutions that govern physical access. NextGen Security, an integrated physical and electronic security provider, played an integral role in the installation and configuration of the access control system.

"SwiftConnect's mission is to help landlords and enterprises adapt to the new way of work and optimize their offices by removing the complexity related to connecting people to the right place at the right time," said Matt Kopel, co-CEO of SwiftConnect. "Our latest project at Bridge's Lenox Park location reinforces the value of helping landlords provide a street-to-seat experience for users, while immediately automating building access management and enhancing their overall security posture."

How it works:

• Employees and tenants can add their employee badge to Apple Wallet after an initial set-up through the BridgeEngage app, developed by Equiem. Once added, the badge will give them access to their office building, tenant floor, flex office spaces and amenities.
• Users can simply tap their iPhone or Apple Watch on Wavelynx Ethos^™️ Readers to unlock access to secured areas. With Express Mode, tenants do not need to unlock their device to use their badge in Apple Wallet. Even if the phone needs to be charged, the device can be used in Power Reserve mode.
• When a Bridge employee or flex space user has an employee badge in Apple Wallet, it is never shared with Apple or stored on Apple servers. If their iPhone or Apple Watch is misplaced, the owner of the device can promptly use the Find My app to lock the device and help locate it. Employee badges in Apple Wallet are stored on personal devices and take full advantage of the privacy and security built into iPhone and Apple Watch.

The Bridge deployment leverages MIFARE DESFire credential technology to deliver an intuitive, private and secure access transaction when a user presents their iPhone or Apple Watch to Wavelynx Ethos^™️ Readers. Rob Lydic, president of Wavelynx, stated, "The Bridge project at Lenox Park is a major milestone as the first launch of employee badges in Apple Wallet with Wavelynx. SwiftConnect's shared vision and access enablement expertise made the company the ideal partner for this important and inaugural deployment."

Lenox Park is home to a diverse array of tech and professional services tenants, and is one of six nationwide locations for Bridge's flex office program known as Abridge, which connects businesses with move-in ready spaces quickly and efficiently without having to sacrifice the independence of their brand or workspace. Bridge plans to expand the availability of employee badge in Apple Wallet to its Abridge locations and across its entire portfolio of buildings this year.

About Bridge Investment Group:
Bridge is a leading, vertically integrated real estate investment manager, diversified across specialized asset classes, with approximately $43.3 billion of assets under management as of December 31, 2022. Bridge combines its nationwide operating platform with dedicated teams of investment professionals focused on select U.S. real estate verticals: residential rental, office, development, logistics properties, net lease, real estate-backed credit, renewable energy and proptech.

About Bridge Commercial Real Estate ("BCRE")
BCRE is an established player in the U.S. commercial office market that specializes in creating desirable, next generation workspaces. BCRE provides world-class commercial office brokerage services, property management, accounting and commercial construction services for Bridge Office assets. With a proven blueprint that delivers long-term value for tenants and investors, our portfolio includes office properties uniquely positioned in dynamic, high-growth markets across the U.S. and continues to grow. We are laser focused on how companies work today – and will work tomorrow. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and Salt Lake City, Utah, BCRE is a subsidiary of Bridge Investment Group, LLC.

About WaveLynx
Wavelynx was founded in 2013 on the belief that simplicity and flexibility are the best path forward to simplify the integration of legacy, current, and future technologies. We provide an open and secure access control platform that allows businesses to modernize authentication technology at the pace and path that is right for them.

We believe that credentials should seamlessly integrate into your workflows, that key management should be simpler to administer, and that migration should be at the pace and path that is right for your business. Our reader and credential solutions free businesses from the constraints of proprietary access control systems through flexibility, choice, and control. With Wavelynx, customers have greater freedom to modernize their authentication technology for any endpoint, any system, and any business.

About SwiftConnect
SwiftConnect is a leading provider of connected access enablement. We delight users with elegant ways to interact with places, spaces and things. By ensuring your ID is on a phone, watch or anywhere it needs to be, we enable swift pass access to every place, everywhere. SwiftConnect powers connected experiences so you can navigate your world better. Our platform is built for interoperability, integrating with existing access control, IT, HR and other facility systems to centralize access management. SwiftConnect provides a street-to-seat journey that users love, automation that redefines operational efficiency and a security-privacy foundation that elevates trust. For more information, visit www.swiftconnect.io.

Apple Wallet, iPhone, and Apple Watch are trademarks of Apple Inc.

Media Contact:
Sarah Biedermann
The Wilbert Group
[email protected]

SOURCE SwiftConnect