Tishman Speyer Partners with Amazon in Long Island City

Tishman Speyer, one of the world’s leading developers, owners, operators and asset managers of first-class real estate, has announced an innovative collaboration with Amazon in which the first residents of all 1,871 apartments at Jackson Park, its trio of high-rise luxury rental towers in Long Island City, will receive an Amazon Echo Show complimentary upon move-in.

In addition to receiving a new Echo Show, all Jackson Park residents will also receive a complimentary smart outlet that can link to the Amazon Show device to highlight some of the endless possibilities associated with smart home and voice-activated technology. Tishman Speyer will also equip each of its 120 premium penthouse residences with a full suite of smart home devices certified to work with Amazon Alexa, including electrical outlets, light switches, and thermostats, enabling new residents to control their home simply by asking Alexa.

“With Jackson Park, Tishman Speyer is setting new standards for Long Island City luxury living and amenities,” said Rob Speyer, president and CEO of Tishman Speyer. “We are thrilled to be working with Amazon, the undisputed leader in advanced smart home technology. We are striving for the best possible experience for our residents and this collaboration completes the amenity package at Jackson Park.”

“From making a living space more comfortable to offering entertainment and information, Alexa and Echo devices can improve the experiences we have in our homes,” said Charlie Kindel, the director of Amazon Smart Home. “Smart home control is one of the most popular Alexa features today, and we think Long Island City residents will love using their voice to make life at home easier.”

The Amazon Echo Show features a 7-inch touchscreen and 5-megapixel camera and is powered by Alexa, the cloud-based voice service that can help residents with tasks, entertainment, general information and more. The Echo Show will offer residents voice responses from Alexa that are now enhanced with visuals and optimized for visibility across the room. Residents can call or message their family and friends, get the news with a video flash briefing, see their Prime Photos, shop with their voice, see lyrics with Amazon Music and more.

Once connected to smart devices in the home, Echo Show will also allow residents to control their lights, television, and thermostat from anywhere in the home by linking with any smart home products in the Works with Amazon Alexa program, other Amazon Echo devices and more. Speakers can be grouped as well, creating a multi-room entertainment system seamlessly controlled by voice.

The concept to develop smart-home enabled apartments originated out of Tishman Speyer’s global internal innovation competition known as the Idea Olympics. Launched in 2016, the Idea Olympics challenged junior executives at Tishman Speyer to form teams and develop a concept for an original residential amenity that would revolutionize the way people live.   Teams competed through two rounds of competition and the winner of 2016’s competition developed the concept to offer apartments equipped with smart home technology, to be implemented in Jackson Park. Tishman Speyer has taken that idea from this internal competition to market in just one year.