Now that the 2022-23 academic school year is in full swing across New England, STV’s move management team can look back at the past few months with a sense of accomplishment following another successful “summer slammer” season.
For years, STV has offered our academic, corporate, healthcare, municipal and non-profit clients a full suite of move management services, coordinating with contractors, moving companies and other stakeholders to create a seamless transition for our clients during their moves to new spaces, or renovation and office space consolidation programs. These services also include managing furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E) moves, as well as procuring new furniture and liquidating or disposing of FF&E. In an academic environment, FF&E is not always limited to desks, chairs and file cabinets and can often include complex and sensitive pieces like laboratory equipment, 3-D printers, and in some unique instances, old-fashioned printing presses and a 10,000-pound magnet.
Our move management practice was one of the core businesses of Diversified Project Management, a firm that was acquired by STV in 2015. It’s been our exemplary performance in the field that has allowed us to grow to where we are today. Regarding our academic clients, while we provide our move management services year-round, our group tacitly understands that when the calendar turns to June, we have a two-to-three-month window to coordinate several moves of different sizes and scopes for both higher education and preK-12 facilities. Because the academic calendar is typically set in stone well in advance of a move, we also know that time is of the essence and that every summer day counts towards the finish – and a successful finish likely means repeat business for our team.
In the higher education realm – where colleges and universities are almost always expanding and renovating their facilities so that they can continue to provide a top-shelf academic experience – students may leave the dorms in June and come back in August, but we still have to manage a move within a semi-operational environment since campuses are rarely “empty.”
For our preK-12 clients, summertime may mean it’s time to relocate or procure new FF&E into a new, recently renovated or expanded building, but it may also mean we need to coordinate a move around other construction activities like asbestos abatement. Our team in Massachusetts and Connecticut has performed these services for projects overseen by major state agencies, like the Massachusetts School Building Authority, the primary government authority that helps fund school construction throughout the Commonwealth. We also have built solid relationships with other owner’s project management firms and work together to develop phased approaches that meet the individualized needs of students, faculty and administrators.
And while summertime might seem like the most opportune time to coordinate these moves, STV also understands that school’s out other times of year. We have experience performing our services for clients in even tighter windows, like winter and spring breaks, and other periods when school is not in session.
I believe what sets our move management team apart from other firms is the people who work here. We all bring something new and different to the table and through collaboration and working towards our strengths, we truly make a great move team. We have a team of client-focused problem-solvers who can always find a creative solution to the most complex problems. It’s that combination of our persistence and an extreme attention to detail, that allows us to handle any move project that comes our way – including setting our academic clients up for another successful school year.
Eva Hamori is the director of STV’s move management team in Boston. She has more than 20 years of experience planning and coordinating moves for a vast array of clients, with an emphasis on coordinating consolidation and renovation projects, and managing FF&E moves.