The New Rules of Amenity Maintenance: 3 Shifts Apartment Operators Should Make
Amenities are no longer simple to run—and the stakes are rising.
It’s a typical day at a luxury apartment community, and the pool is sparkling, the coffee station is brewing and the fitness center is filled with exercise aficionados getting their workout in. These amenities aren’t just a perk for residents—they’re expected and necessary to both attract and retain renters, helping owners and managers stay competitive.
“Amenities have changed,” said Jamie Kane, vice president of new development, multifamily, for The Breeden Co. “There are new amenities, such as EV charging stations and simulated golf, but even staple amenities, like pools, fitness centers and clubhouses, have evolved too.” Behind the scenes, keeping these amenities clean and operational—and making sure staff can handle the maintenance of high-tech equipment such as Peloton bikes and Echelon fitness mirrors—is requiring apartment owners and managers to update their operational strategies, tweak their hiring requirements and devote more money to their amenities maintenance budgets in an effort to stay competitive.
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Neglecting your amenities—and allowing issues like a green pool or unsanitary dog park—can damage your reputation, push away prospective renters and discourage existing ones from renewing. Perhaps more importantly, an improperly maintained piece of equipment, or a hole dug by a dog in the park that creates a tripping hazard, can cause injury.
Staffing and budget pressures
As amenities become more high-tech, “the days of hiring someone who’s afraid of technology are over,” said Patti Higgins, senior vice president of Parktown Living in Duluth, Ga. “We absolutely have to have a tech-savvy person.”
Higgins said that the company cross-trains employees to be sure there’s always someone available with the necessary skills to handle an emergent maintenance issue for amenities. “We believe in redundancy,” she said. “That way if one person is sick or on vacation, we’re not caught off-guard, and the amenities don’t suffer.”
It’s no secret that both labor and materials costs are rising today–and that applies to maintenance costs for amenities as well.
According to the National Apartment Association, the cost of maintaining recreational and other amenities increased by 22.2 percent between 2021 and 2024, the latest year for which statistics are available.
Part of the increase is due to amenities that often come with subscriptions, like Peloton bikes, or service contracts. “For fitness mirrors, we have to pay monthly for the residents to have access to that service,” said Nelson Maldonado, vice president of maintenance for Mill Creek Residential. “We also have to pay for service contracts, typically for our fitness equipment but for some other amenities spaces too.”
Apartment operators also need to plan for the cost of hiring third-party vendors to maintain or repair amenities, especially when the on-site maintenance team isn’t able to troubleshoot an issue. That expertise comes at a higher cost than having staff take care of the problem.
Containing costs
Even at a time when costs are rising, it’s possible to reduce the maintenance costs for amenities, or at least contain them. Remember, however, that while you may strive to reduce out-of-pocket costs, that cannot result in a lower standard of service for your residents.
“Cutting maintenance costs can be short-sighted,” said Pei Pei Mirabella, a senior vice president at Bozzuto. “Amenities are revenue-driving.”
Here are three strategies to consider:
- Limit equipment costs. Higgins said that Parktown Living purchases a single piece of equipment, like a pressure washer, and then shares it among other communities in the region. “Depending on the scale and size of the properties, we’ve had a great deal of success managing costs this way,” she said.
- Negotiate bulk contracts. “If we have eight to 10 communities in the same area, we’ll see if there’s a local vendor who can service all of them at a discounted price,” said Mill Creek’s Maldonado. Even if that’s not possible, put your contracts out to bid on a regular basis to see if you can duplicate the service at a lower cost.
- Streamline amenities maintenance by tapping technology. Many property management platforms keep track of work orders not only for individual apartments but also for amenities. Kane said that during site inspections, if an issue is discovered, a staff member can take a photograph, upload it, and then the system will automatically send a work order to the vendor, saving that employee additional steps and time.
