Affiliated Monitoring opening new $25m center

MILBURN, N.J.—Affiliated Monitoring is opening a new $25 million, 80,000-square-foot monitoring center here. In trials now, it will be fully operational within a couple of months, according to Mike Zydor, dealer relations manager.

“The new facility will combine with our existing monitoring center in Sheepshead Bay, N.Y.,” Zydor told Security Systems News in an email interview.

Affiliated Monitoring, which has been in business since 1977, was formerly Affiliated Central and has recently rebranded.

The new central station has 1.3 megawatts of power and two generators. “We have three different communications providers [that] enter the building through alternative sites,” Zydor explained. “Everyone should have two, we have three.”

The impetus behind the two-year project was twofold: the need for more space and the desire to expand services to Affiliated's 1,200-plus dealers.

Zydor said that Affiliated has “made a commitment to redundancy and having the telephony and IP infrastructure to offer all of the interactive services that dealers and end users expect.”

In addition, “the building is designed to be a partner facility for the industry and for our dealers,” Zydor explained.

The Milburn facility includes a conference center that was “based on leading educational and leadership facilities. It is built to the highest level of finish and A/V technology,” he said.

The six-acre site was chosen because it is conveniently located 40 minutes from midtown Manhattan, and close to major airports and highways.

“Our vision is to allow [dealers] to bring their new or major customers and to host any number of events,” he said. “Whether it's training store managers for a dealer's national account or flying in a dealer's senior management to conduct an annual off-site [session], we [want to offer dealers] a tool that no other monitoring partner currently can offer. Additionally, we have an extensive meeting facility for alarm associations to use for meetings and training sessions.”

Designed by Affiliated's management with assistance from a team of experts, Zydor said the center “incorporates the company's 35 years of internal collective experience.”

An architectural firm coordinated a team that included separate specialty firms in engineering, A/V and telecommunications.

“Affiliated hired the foremost expert in unified communications to add further expertise to the team,” Zydor said.