All tribal projects are unique and include many different building types, each one with its own priorities, requirements, and cultural significance. That said, these projects must always serve the tribe, benefit its people, and honor its culture and values.
Tribal project owners take their duty to serve as good stewards of tribal resources seriously. As a result, it’s important that other project stakeholders recognize that every dollar spent must deliver value to the community. But while project owners don’t want to waste money, they are willing to spend more on practical, useful solutions that better serve the community.
This is an area where technology design can prove divisive. Tribal project owners won’t embrace innovation for the sake of being on the leading edge. However, they are generally willing to implement new technology and infrastructure that solves current problems and creates future opportunities. It’s up to architects and project partners to deliver designs that address these challenges and solutions that deliver on their promised value.
To ensure that project owners get the full value of their technology infrastructure, it’s essential to involve a technology consultant upfront. Expertise in this area can help identify not just individual solutions but installation approaches that can maximize system value over the long term.
Deliver new ideas that enhance value
Because tribal project stakeholders take a long-term view of value, project owners want partners to bring in new ideas. They may not always invest in these technology solutions right away, but appreciate when partners offer ideas on how to enhance value.
However, many tribal project owners have proven that they’re willing to adopt advanced technology when their project partners can make the business case for these investments. For example, when the Muscogee (Creek) Nation requested solutions that would support sustainability and cost savings within their 167,000-square-foot Citizen Services Building, they ultimately agreed to invest in a low-voltage intelligent lighting solution. After reviewing options, they found that the right design could also lead to a solution that would lower installation and operating costs and enable greater control over the lighting system. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is now designing this same solution into its future projects.
Many tribal project stakeholders have also proven willing to pay more upfront for solutions that reduce the long-term costs of project ownership and maintenance. Research indicates that approximately 70% of a building’s total cost is in its operational expense. Paying more in upfront construction costs to achieve lower maintenance costs is particularly valuable for tribal owners, who will often occupy their buildings for decades.
In building its headquarters, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma ultimately paid to have their network infrastructure redesigned to ensure they had the best solution installed upfront. They recognized that a technology-agnostic design that anticipated how technologies would change in the future would prevent them from spending money chasing technology improvements as they were released. To ensure this flexibility, the half-million square-foot modular facility embedded its all-fiber network and Class 4 power systems under the raised floors and into the walls, using quick-connect cabling. This enables nearly endless reconfiguration for this modern office building – including more than 350 changes since 2018.
Position your team to maximize value
Technology alone doesn’t deliver value. It has to be designed and installed appropriately. That’s why many tribal projects benefit from working with a technology consultant who serves as an extension of their team.
A valuable technology consultant partner takes ownership of a project, treating owner’s priorities as their own. This partner collaborates closely with internal teams to ensure technology is designed to serve the owner’s specific use cases. Your consultant should be continuously looking for opportunities to reduce spending while enhancing project value. Finally, a technology partner should provide highly detailed design drawings and specifications demonstrating exactly how every project component will work and deliver value.
This is the type of partner the Cherokee Nation found in its technology design for the Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah, Okla. This 469,000-square-foot, full-service hospital was set to integrate a wide range of technology solutions. However, the Cherokee project stakeholders realized they did not have the in-house resources to oversee the technology planning for a cutting-edge hospital while managing the technology across their existing portfolio. They needed a multidisciplinary technology consultant who could handle the diversity of systems and enforce the Nation’s design standards.
Childers Architect brought CRUX Solutions onboard to create a design that accounted for every piece of IT equipment in the entire hospital, as well as complex AV systems and a range of security systems. Once onboard, the CRUX team met with every department within the hospital to map out each piece of IT technology equipment. The resulting specification document spelled out the level of integration required between every piece of hardware and software going into the facility to achieve desired use cases.
During this process, the CRUX team began applying the Nation’s IT standards to the design of the hospital’s technology systems. This standardization is essential for ensuring modern solutions work effectively together. It also helps keep technology consistent across the Nation’s healthcare facilities, simplifying system maintenance and operations. Standardization further helps reduce costs by ensuring equipment can be purchased through existing contracts. Ultimately, CRUX was asked to rewrite Cherokee’s technical standards to ensure that vendors’ proposed technology solutions comply with the design standards and that hospital operators would gain the full advantages of their modern technology solution.
Build the case for technology’s value
A holistic approach to low-voltage technology network infrastructure design can help any project owner reduce costs and maximize value. However, architects may find their tribal clients particularly open to technology strategies that can demonstrate how they will serve building occupants. Understanding those use cases begins with open communication with project owners – while delivering that value is best achieved by working with a knowledgeable technology consultant.
This is an area where CRUX can help. From small facilities to tribal headquarters of over 500,000 square feet, CRUX has delivered the benefit of its integrated infrastructure approach to projects for tribal nations from Oklahoma and Arizona to New York and Alaska. To learn more about how we can maximize the value of technology networks designed for tribal projects, contact CRUX today.