For many New Yorkers, the experience of living in a large rental building has changed dramatically over the last decade. The doorman, superintendent, and property manager are still essential, but more of daily life now runs through digital tools, from booking amenities and reserving elevators to submitting service requests, signing up for fitness classes, and staying connected to building events.
At Gotham Organization, one of the city's long-running residential developers and managers, that shift has become part of a broader effort to modernize operations across their growing portfolio. The company recently rolled out Venn, a third-party resident experience platform, across its buildings after testing it in one property earlier this year. CityRealty spoke with Ben Picket, Director of Strategic Operations at Gotham, about the firm's tech-forward approach, what residents expect from building apps today, and how a 114-year-old real estate company thinks about change.
At Gotham Organization, one of the city's long-running residential developers and managers, that shift has become part of a broader effort to modernize operations across their growing portfolio. The company recently rolled out Venn, a third-party resident experience platform, across its buildings after testing it in one property earlier this year. CityRealty spoke with Ben Picket, Director of Strategic Operations at Gotham, about the firm's tech-forward approach, what residents expect from building apps today, and how a 114-year-old real estate company thinks about change.
In this article:
Ondel Hylton: Can you start by explaining your role at Gotham and how you came into real estate?
Ben Picket: I came from the world of startups. When I graduated college, I joined a healthcare startup that was in the early days, about five employees when I joined. I focused on strategy and operations, customer success, marketing, and business operations, and really had my hand in many pots and wore a lot of hats.
My interest was never really in healthcare. My love and passion has always been in the world of food and hospitality, and obviously, I grew up in the world of real estate. I later went to Wonder, which is trying to change access to food and quality of food for fast-casual restaurants, and worked on strategy, operations, and go-to-market.
After that, I had a conversation with my father. Gotham had been going through real growth spurts, adding a lot of units and employees, and was no longer this small family company. It was a larger business that needed some infrastructure put in place. That was my bread and butter, and even though Gotham was 114 years old, there were a lot of scaling pains that came with growth.
Ondel: Gotham recently deployed Venn across its portfolio. Can you explain what prompted the move?
Ben: We had an app that we had built on our own, and the concept was really exciting, but there was a ton of maintenance that Gotham probably wasn’t equipped to handle on its own.
Then we moved to another platform, BuildingLink, but it was a little bare-bones. You could put in maintenance requests and schedule some things here and there, but it wasn’t really this holistic platform that captured the resident experience, or at least not the resident experience we wanted to have.
That’s where Venn came into place. It offered tenants the components we wanted in an app and provided access to all the elements that the Gotham ecosystem offers in a really easy-to-navigate manner. You can book move-ins, move-outs, events, fitness classes, service requests, and maintenance requests, and that is now all housed in the Venn platform.
Ondel: How did Gotham choose Venn, and what can residents use it for?
Ben: Venn is a third party. They recently also partnered with Related, I believe, and they’re a fast-growing startup.
I felt like I really connected with the founder, believed in his vision, and liked that when you partner with a company that is more early-stage, you have the opportunity to carve out specific features you’re interested in and put together a roadmap side by side with the Venn team.
We launched with them in March or April, starting with one building. After getting feedback, we rolled it out to the rest of our portfolio and have been getting really great feedback from tenants. They love the look and feel, and they have reported ease in booking, moving in, moving out, holding elevators, joining fitness classes, and RSVPing. Residents can also use it for event updates, amenity booking, repair requests, concierge communication, service requests, and maintenance requests.
We launched with them in March or April, starting with one building. After getting feedback, we rolled it out to the rest of our portfolio and have been getting really great feedback from tenants. They love the look and feel, and they have reported ease in booking, moving in, moving out, holding elevators, joining fitness classes, and RSVPing. Residents can also use it for event updates, amenity booking, repair requests, concierge communication, service requests, and maintenance requests.
Yoga studio at The Suffolk | https://thesuffolk.com/
Ondel: Is the new app meant to replace human interaction in the buildings?
Ben: This isn’t meant to replace any humans that we’ve already had on the team. It’s really just meant to remove any friction that was in place.
We used BuildingLink in the past, so this was more of a software swap-out that happens to have additional functionality we didn’t have in our previous iterations. We also work with a concierge called LIVunLtd, and Liv is still part of the Gotham ecosystem. They put together events, help with move-ins and move-outs, and handle communication.
This is just a tool in the background that’s meant to make all of those people more efficient instead of having a lot of manual processes taking up more time.
We used BuildingLink in the past, so this was more of a software swap-out that happens to have additional functionality we didn’t have in our previous iterations. We also work with a concierge called LIVunLtd, and Liv is still part of the Gotham ecosystem. They put together events, help with move-ins and move-outs, and handle communication.
This is just a tool in the background that’s meant to make all of those people more efficient instead of having a lot of manual processes taking up more time.
Attended lobby at Gotham West in Hell's Kitchen
“This isn’t meant to replace any humans that we’ve already had on the team. It’s really just meant to remove any friction that was in place.”
Ondel: How do you assess whether residents are responding well to the new platform?
Ben: We used to use SatisFacts surveys to get a general sense of tenant satisfaction, what’s going well, and what’s not going well. Those surveys are now living inside of the Venn platform.
We still collect feedback from tenants on how the building is doing, what we can improve on, and what they love. From what I’ve seen and heard, they love that it feels like it is in the 21st century. It is aesthetically pleasing, but also naturally an easy tool to use in their day-to-day.
Now we can get a real sense of utilization from reporting that Venn is building out. We can focus on areas that are important to tenants and maybe focus less on the things we thought were important but are not really part of the thought process of your average tenant.
We also have new features rolling out on the maintenance request side, waitlists for events, and a marketplace within the app so people can sell furniture to each other within the building.
With Venn, because it is early days and because we are one of those early adopters and first movers, we get the advantage of working side by side with them on specific items we see coming up. They can put something on the roadmap and sometimes get it out to us in a couple of weeks or a few months. That would never happen with larger companies that have been in the space for decades.
We still collect feedback from tenants on how the building is doing, what we can improve on, and what they love. From what I’ve seen and heard, they love that it feels like it is in the 21st century. It is aesthetically pleasing, but also naturally an easy tool to use in their day-to-day.
Now we can get a real sense of utilization from reporting that Venn is building out. We can focus on areas that are important to tenants and maybe focus less on the things we thought were important but are not really part of the thought process of your average tenant.
We also have new features rolling out on the maintenance request side, waitlists for events, and a marketplace within the app so people can sell furniture to each other within the building.
With Venn, because it is early days and because we are one of those early adopters and first movers, we get the advantage of working side by side with them on specific items we see coming up. They can put something on the roadmap and sometimes get it out to us in a couple of weeks or a few months. That would never happen with larger companies that have been in the space for decades.
Billiards room at Gotham West in Hell's Kitchen | https://gothamorg.com/portfolio/gotham-west/
Ondel: Are younger renters expecting a different level of technology integration than older residents?
Ben: Today, people across the board are increasingly expecting more convenience, responsiveness, personalization, and seamless access to their information.
At The Nicole, the tenant base typically skews toward people in their forties, fifties, and sixties, and I don’t think you get that same level of expectations around technology. It is a building they have grown to love from living in it for 10 or 20 years.
But in our new buildings, where tenants skew younger, like The Maybury or The Suffolk, this is a fantastic tool. It sets Gotham apart from other buildings in the area and makes tenants really excited about their living experience within our buildings.
At The Nicole, the tenant base typically skews toward people in their forties, fifties, and sixties, and I don’t think you get that same level of expectations around technology. It is a building they have grown to love from living in it for 10 or 20 years.
But in our new buildings, where tenants skew younger, like The Maybury or The Suffolk, this is a fantastic tool. It sets Gotham apart from other buildings in the area and makes tenants really excited about their living experience within our buildings.
Ondel: As more of daily life moves through apps, do you worry about losing human interaction?
Ben: It’s a good question. I’m 30, and I sometimes find myself in this interesting in-between where I grew up without much of this in my childhood. I wasn’t on social media and didn’t have access to cell phones until high school.
Now I have a daughter who is nine months old, and I constantly think about what it will be like for her growing up in a world where everything is available to you all the time and there are screens.
There is definitely a concern that people just want to only interact through their devices. But what is nice about Gotham buildings is that we have teams that really love what they do and are dedicated to their jobs. Our concierge teams, porters, and supers have gotten incredible feedback from tenants, and I think that makes people want to have more face-to-face interactions.
A lot of what Liv does is have in-person events in our lobbies and fitness classes that force people to have those face-to-face interactions with other tenants.
Now I have a daughter who is nine months old, and I constantly think about what it will be like for her growing up in a world where everything is available to you all the time and there are screens.
There is definitely a concern that people just want to only interact through their devices. But what is nice about Gotham buildings is that we have teams that really love what they do and are dedicated to their jobs. Our concierge teams, porters, and supers have gotten incredible feedback from tenants, and I think that makes people want to have more face-to-face interactions.
A lot of what Liv does is have in-person events in our lobbies and fitness classes that force people to have those face-to-face interactions with other tenants.
Pool deck at The Suffolk on the Lower East Side | https://thesuffolk.com/
Ondel: Are those resident events still well attended?
Ben: Very well attended. A lot of times there is some element of free food that entices people to come down, but they have historically been really well attended.
I have been to many of the events myself and have seen people in the building talking to each other and chatting. This isn’t just a building. We’re trying to create a real ecosystem.
I think that’s why people choose the Gotham Living mentality, not just when they are looking for specific apartments, but when they say, “I lived at The Suffolk. What is the next building I could live at?” They try to stay within the portfolio.
I have been to many of the events myself and have seen people in the building talking to each other and chatting. This isn’t just a building. We’re trying to create a real ecosystem.
I think that’s why people choose the Gotham Living mentality, not just when they are looking for specific apartments, but when they say, “I lived at The Suffolk. What is the next building I could live at?” They try to stay within the portfolio.
Courtyard at Gotham West
Ondel: What has been most interesting to you about this technology?
Ben: What I’ve really been focusing on at Gotham is trying to unify all of the different tidbits of information we have across our systems. Leasing lives in one system, renewals in another, marketing elsewhere, and asset management information in another tool.
That is all helpful, but what is more helpful is understanding how all of those pieces tell the larger story of the tenants who live in our building, what keeps them coming back, and what keeps them renewing.
That has been my mission over the last two and a half years, centralizing all of that data and creating real outputs so we can be the best version of ourselves. Venn has taken the same outlook. It is helpful to get tenants in the door, but it is more helpful to understand what keeps tenants around and what makes them happy.
That is all helpful, but what is more helpful is understanding how all of those pieces tell the larger story of the tenants who live in our building, what keeps them coming back, and what keeps them renewing.
That has been my mission over the last two and a half years, centralizing all of that data and creating real outputs so we can be the best version of ourselves. Venn has taken the same outlook. It is helpful to get tenants in the door, but it is more helpful to understand what keeps tenants around and what makes them happy.
Gotham Point, Long Island City | https://gothampoint.com/
Ondel: What do you think is next for integrating technology into residential building life?
Ben: What’s at the top of most people’s minds right now is AI, and it is certainly something Gotham has been putting thought into. I don’t know that Gotham will be the first mover in that space. There is a lot of caution around implementing AI into specific things.
Part of us fears that we are custodians of pretty sensitive information about people who live in our buildings, and we don’t want to rush into implementing tools that would put any of that information at risk.
We are thinking about how we can use AI to better the day-to-day lives of our tenants and make their experiences even better. On the back-of-house side, we are thinking about how it can help leasing managers and the teams who work in the buildings. For now, those are exploratory conversations.
Part of us fears that we are custodians of pretty sensitive information about people who live in our buildings, and we don’t want to rush into implementing tools that would put any of that information at risk.
We are thinking about how we can use AI to better the day-to-day lives of our tenants and make their experiences even better. On the back-of-house side, we are thinking about how it can help leasing managers and the teams who work in the buildings. For now, those are exploratory conversations.
Ondel: Is there anything else you would add about Gotham’s approach to technology?
Ben: It is hard when you are a 114-year-old company to embrace change. A lot of times, you want to do the thing you have been doing for the last decade or two decades or three decades.
Over the last 10 years, technology has changed in a way that has forced Gotham to rethink its general operations. That is really what I’ve been here to do: think about tooling and software that can help the people at Gotham be better at their jobs, be more efficient, and help tenants complete things in an easier fashion.
Companies that stand the test of time are the ones that are able to adapt to changing landscapes. We believe that we are in another wave with everything going on with AI, so it is about adjusting and making sure we stay with everything that is changing along with us.
Real estate is antiquated in a lot of ways because it is comfortable. People don’t always recognize how much they can improve their day-to-day tasks until new technology comes along and shows them. There is usually resistance, and then after it is adopted, there is relief and an understanding that you were doing things that could have been implemented more efficiently earlier and sooner.
Over the last 10 years, technology has changed in a way that has forced Gotham to rethink its general operations. That is really what I’ve been here to do: think about tooling and software that can help the people at Gotham be better at their jobs, be more efficient, and help tenants complete things in an easier fashion.
Companies that stand the test of time are the ones that are able to adapt to changing landscapes. We believe that we are in another wave with everything going on with AI, so it is about adjusting and making sure we stay with everything that is changing along with us.
Real estate is antiquated in a lot of ways because it is comfortable. People don’t always recognize how much they can improve their day-to-day tasks until new technology comes along and shows them. There is usually resistance, and then after it is adopted, there is relief and an understanding that you were doing things that could have been implemented more efficiently earlier and sooner.
Outdoor terrace at Gotham Point on the Long Island City waterfront | https://gothampoint.com/
“Companies that stand the test of time are the ones that are able to adapt to changing landscapes.” — Ben Picket
Gotham Organization
(646) 867-XXXX
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