excerpted from May 2001 issue of Access Control and Security Systems magazine, by Carol Carey
Preventing incidents aimed at tourists, such as those by purse-snatchers or pick-pockets, is a concern here. While there has not been a significant crime problem, we wanted our visitors to feel safe.
When General Growth Properties Inc. (GGP) unveiled its new Stonebriar Centre just outside of Dallas in August 2000, the 1.6 million square foot, the two-story enclosed mall was already well equipped with security management tools.
The mall, which has 154 stores plus six anchor stores, has 16 emergency call boxes from Talkaphone, 32 Pelco cameras, three Gyyr digital recorders with built-in multiplexers, and a combination of fiber-optic and twisted-pair wire to help transmit data and images. The data and images are transmitted to a sleek Winsted console equipped with four 20-inch and three 14-inch monitors.
"As part of our new mall design, we plan to incorporate video and call boxes from the beginning," says David Levenberg, vice president of security and loss prevention for General Growth, one of the country's largest developers of regional shopping malls. The company, headquartered in Chicago, currently owns interests in, or has management responsibilities for, 147 regional shopping malls in 39 states.
Building security systems into new malls - rather than retrofitting once problems surface - is far more cost-efficient, says Levenberg. Before Stonebriar Centre opened, General Growth had begun retrofitting several centers with CCTV, call boxes and, in some cases, access control. The impact of these systems convinced the company that they should become standard equipment for new malls.
Levenberg says there are several of the company's mall properties that stand out for the quality of their security systems and the impact those systems have had on reducing liability and protecting shoppers. Among them are malls in San Diego, Honolulu and Grand Rapids, Mich....
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