American Burglary and Fire remodels headquarters

FENTON, Mo.—American Burglary and Fire, a full-service security company based here, expects to finish the remodel of its facility in October, a project that first entered planning two years ago.

“We had moved into this particular building in 1993, and it was originally three separate tenant spaces. But, as we kept growing as a company, we needed more space to grow into,” Joe W. Polizzi, installation and service manager for American Burglary and Fire, told Security Systems News. “About … 10 years ago, we took over the second tenant space, and then about two years ago, the last tenant moved out.”

Each of the original three tenant spaces was 4,000 square feet, giving ABF 12,000 square feet total. After the latest remodel, the company has added a second demo space. “We're going to showcase more of our speakers, sound bars, along with—obviously—security and fire [and cameras],” Amanda Cullen, ABF's residential sales manager, told SSN.

Planning for the remodel started in 2015, and the remodeling began about seven months ago, according to Polizzi.

In business since 1978 and family-owned and operated, American Burglary and Fire has about 17,000 customers. The company's account base is about 60 percent residential and 40 percent commercial.

ABF operates its own UL listed, TMA Five Diamond certified monitoring center, which gained biometric two-phase access control after the remodeling. “We now have facial recognition readers and a card swipe to validate going into the monitoring center,” said Polizzi.

The remodeled facility now has a more open, modern feel, according to Cullen. “We have a lot of glass in the building, so as you walk through, you can … see through the glass and see everything, and that's the idea we wanted.”

The open layout of the building was designed to improve communication between departments, Polizzi noted.

“Before, our service department—the people who are actually answering service calls—and our monitoring were separate. Currently, they are together so that if there is an issue with the monitoring, or signals are coming in repeatedly, they can immediately walk it right next door to the person in the service department that can schedule service calls,” Polizzi said.