Buckingham's 'Super' Opportunity 

Perhaps the only people more excited about this month’s Super Bowl XLVI in downtown Indianapolis than fans from the New York Giants or New England Patriots were Erica Metzger, CAM, CAPS, and Linda Ferrill, CPM, of apartment management firm Buckingham Companies.

Neither did any of the punting, passing or kicking in the big game, but as property management executive staff for the Indianapolis-based company, they served the needs of nearly 200 short-term out-of-towners who were among the nearly 80,000 to descend upon Indianapolis for this year’s Super Bowl.

Senior Property Manager Metzger and Regional Property Manager Ferrill, along with countless onsite and executive staff from Buckingham, certainly put in more than a long season’s worth of work for this profitable leasing opportunity.

Buckingham began gearing up for these short stays months before NFL training camps opened late last summer, according to Buckingham Companies’ Alexandra S. Jackiw, CAPS, CPM, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer.

“When we learned about two years ago that the Super Bowl was coming to Indianapolis in 2012, we looked to see how we could participate and benefit in big events like this,” Jackiw says. Buckingham staff established and maintained regular contact with the Super Bowl planning committees of the league, downtown Indianapolis and the cities of the participating teams leading up to the game.

Ferrill says the most advantageous connection Buckingham made during the process was with the NFL-affiliated group Fan Experience. This organization is deeply involved in many Super Bowl organizational logistics, including finding housing for its affiliates’ guests who attend.

“At first, we thought about advertising our available apartment homes through online listings and the usual other marketing avenues,” Ferrill says, “but with Fan Experience, we’re fortunate because they take care of most of the logistics. We provide the housing and they choose who will live where. They collect the rent for us and write us one big check.”

Good Fortune

The Buckingham community in downtown Indianapolis that was home to the majority of Fan Experience’s guests was The Avenue, a brand-new, 146-unit downtown student housing community. To Buckingham’s coincidental good fortune, it was delivered in December.

Buckingham leased 83 of its four-bedroom apartments at The Avenue at $450 per day/per bed (four-day minimum stay). Ferrill says these Super Bowl short stays brought in the equivalent of two months’ worth of rental income that the Buckingham property is expecting to receive during the upcoming school year, based on anticipated rates of $2,000 ($500 per bed) per month. Ferrill, who was interviewed for this article about three weeks prior to Super Bowl Sunday, says Buckingham was expected to rent approximately 30 other apartment homes of various sizes at its other downtown and outlying area communities for the Super Bowl, most likely through Fan Experience.

“We probably won’t know exact details about those rentals until just a few days before the game,” Ferrill says. “It will come down to supply and demand.”

Not knowing the residents, she says, is one aspect that is challenging from a management company’s perspective. “We’re told by Fan Experience that it will fill these units with ‘behind-the-scenes’ people,” Ferrill says. “We’re not sure what that means. We could get the workers who help to set up the stage, or we could get the actual performers. Having residents with so-called celebrity status could come with the kind of additional social activities that some in this clientele are known for.”

To furnish the homes at The Avenue, Buckingham held a contest called the Super Bowl Shuffle among its staff members from its surrounding communities, Jackiw says. “Members are timed, hustling through the apartment homes to see who can stock them the fastest,” Jackiw says.

Ferrill, who admits she is not a football fan, says her entire staff is excited about the opportunity. “Because of what we’ve done through Fan Experience, many of our staff will be able to participate in festivities that surround the game,” she says.

Some Super-High Prices for Super Bowl ‘Mansions’

How difficult and expensive is it to find a place to stay during the Super Bowl?
Supply and demand is certainly critical for those excited fans of participating teams—especially because they have only two weeks or less to secure housing following the NFL conference championship games.

A quick, generic online search in mid-January for available housing in downtown Indianapolis brought dozens of listings.

• One- or two-bedroom condos started at approximately $2,500 per day, with a three- or five-day minimum stay.
• Some self-described “luxurious” four- or five-bedroom homes were listed at $6,500 per day (five-day minimum).

Most listings did not include the pricey game tickets, which have an average face value of at least $1,000 apiece and a street value of nearly $5,000.

Says one apartment industry veteran from Indianapolis, “It’s hard to say what these condos and mansions will fetch in rent. We’ve never had the Super Bowl in our city. There’s no precedent. Let’s see if they can get it.”

Next season’s Super Bowl is in New Orleans, followed by New York City (northern New Jersey) in 2014 and Glendale, Ariz., in 2015.–P.B.

 Apartment Parking Lot Tailgating

And what’s a big football game without tailgating? Sure enough, another Buckingham property—Harness Factory located on Georgia Street just a few blocks from the Super Bowl site’s Lucas Oil Stadium—will lease its community parking lot to NFL sponsor Anheuser-Busch for game-day celebrations. This setup at Super Bowl Village represents another profit opportunity for Buckingham.

Jackiw says these pre-game social events will inconvenience residents to some degree, but many are excited to at least remotely be involved in the celebration.

In preparation, Jackiw says Harness Factory’s onsite staff gave residents sufficient notice and appropriate alternative parking options for the Super Bowl weekend.

Jackiw says one other challenge was an extensive visit to the community by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as part of its preparation for having celebrity residents who were expected to attend functions at The Avenue during Super Bowl weekend.

Other Big Events Year-Round

Although the NFL’s Super Bowl location announcement is widely publicized, Jackiw says management firms in any market who stay tuned-in to what is going on in their communities can pinpoint and take advantage of other such short-term leasing opportunities.

Her company has hosted one-weekend to one-month stays for events such as a national equestrian show as well as the more predictable weekend room-stays during Notre Dame University’s six or seven home football games each year in South Bend, Ind.

“In a case like Notre Dame, you know the games will be played every year,” Jackiw says. “The alumni come back they need a place to live, there’s not an abundance of housing in a town like South Bend, so these regulars count on us.”

Also worth consideration are events such as the Final Four weekend in NCAA men’s and women’s basketball, NCAA conference football title games, major professional golf tournaments and the need for housing during the month-long lead-up to events such as the Indianapolis 500, which must provide living arrangements for participants, crews and spectators.

Paul R. Bergeron III is NAA’s Director of Communications. He can be reached at 703/797-0606 or paul@naahq.org.

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