CITY ISLAND

A Digital Leap in Property & Facility Management

Brand

City Island

Industry

PropTech / Facility Management

Release

2025

Activities & Technology:

Custom Solution

React.js

Next.js

UX/UI

TypeScript

Prisma.js

⚡

TL;DR

City Island partnered with Upheave to transform the management of its 15-building complex through a centralized digital dashboard: reducing errors, speeding up leasing, and providing real-time visibility across operations.

The result: greater efficiency, faster decision-making, and an improved tenant experience.

About City Island

City Island is a large commercial complex in Zagreb, Croatia, comprising 15 modern buildings. It was envisioned as one of Croatia's most advanced business hubs.

The new City Island complex brought 15 modern office buildings under one operational umbrella. With experience in managing complex property operations, the team's main task was to fully digitalize their established processes so that all units, teams, and premium tenants could be managed from a single, centralized system. In this environment, a missed renewal, delayed repair, or incorrect availability update could quickly affect revenue and reputation.

Across Europe, property portfolios are moving away from manual processes toward centralized, digital management platforms that deliver measurable gains in leasing speed, operational efficiency, and tenant satisfaction. That is why for City Island, launching a fully digital management system was the operational foundation for its long-term growth.

Challenge

City Island’s experienced team knew it would be a challenge to keep track of tenants, offers, contracts, and maintenance plans when scaling operations to 15 buildings. The old, mostly manual approach was already cumbersome for a smaller footprint, and in a large, high-profile setting, the risks of inefficiency and errors were far greater.

The most pressing challenges included:

PROBLEM

CONSEQUENCE

Manual, fragmented processes

Processes such as lease tracking, occupancy monitoring, and maintenance scheduling were spread across different files and departments, making it easy for critical details to slip through the cracks.

No centralized 'single source of truth'

Key information, such as floor plans, pricing, or service history, was hard to access in one place, slowing down decision-making and team coordination.

Balancing structure with flexibility

The system had to enforce consistent workflows while accommodating real-world quirks, requiring extensive alignment before development.

Our Approach & Solution

The project began with a deep dive into City Island's operational reality. We met with management, sales teams, and reviewed maintenance workflows with the facility staff. This went beyond gathering requirements. It was about understanding how the organization worked day-to-day and where the biggest opportunities for improvement were.

The solution was delivered in three phases:

PHASE

TITLE

KEY ACTIVITIES

Phase 1

Discovery & Strategy

Mapped existing workflows across all departments to identify inefficiencies and opportunities for automation.
Ran workshops to define where processes should be strict and where flexibility would be allowed.

Phase 2

Design & Build

Real-time occupancy dashboards, interactive floor plans, building-level overviews, parking availability, and pricing data
Filterable property listings, automated offer generation, integrated floor plan views, and printable proposals
Task tracking for planned and unplanned maintenance, detailed contractor profiles, service histories, and technical equipment inventory

Phase 3

Launch & Optimization

The rollout was staged to allow each team to adapt. Training sessions and iterative adjustments ensured adoption, with sales and management quickly integrating the platform into their daily work.

Results & Impact

The launch of the new internal dashboard fundamentally transformed City Island’s property and facility management operations. Beyond providing a modern interface, it redefined how teams work together and how quickly they can act.

Proactive facility management

Real-time tracking of maintenance tasks and service histories allowed for faster issue resolution and better preventative planning, reducing downtime for tenants.

Fewer administrative errors and duplicate tasks

Centralizing all data into one platform reduced confusion and rework, freeing staff to focus on higher-value activities and client service.

Improved decision-making at the management level

Occupancy, pricing, and building status can now be monitored instantly, enabling leadership to act on opportunities or address risks without delay.

Faster offer creation and lease management

Automated calculations, integrated floor plan views, and ready-to-send proposal templates shortened turnaround times for sales teams, enabling them to secure deals faster.

All of these improvements were felt not only internally but also by tenants, who experienced faster responses, smoother leasing processes, and better-maintained facilities, strengthening City Island's reputation as a premier destination for businesses.

Strategic Takeaways

Technology alone doesn't solve operational complexity. That is why one of the clearest lessons from this project was that process clarity has to come first. Before building anything, City Island's stakeholders needed to agree on how much flexibility to allow in the system without undermining consistency. That conversation, while challenging, prevented bigger issues later.

Another takeaway is the critical role of communication during design. The "rigid versus flexible" debate spanned multiple workshops and iterations, but it was the depth of dialogue that ensured the final product worked for management, sales, and facility teams alike.

Finally, future-proofing from day one proved its worth. Although no integrations were required at launch, the architecture is built to accommodate ERP, CRM, or IoT systems whenever City Island chooses, protecting them from costly rebuilds as needs evolve.

Why Upheave Was the Right Partner

City Island needed a partner who could translate complex property sales and facility operations into a unified digital system. Upheave brought its expertise in digitalization to design a platform that worked for both sides without compromise.

Upheave's strengths on this project included:

Rapidly adapting to two distinct operational environments, ensuring the platform was equally valuable to sales and technical teams.

Maintaining open communication channels throughout, which helped navigate the structure-versus-flexibility challenge without derailing timelines.

Designing a scalable, integration-ready architecture so the platform could grow with City Island's needs without disruptive redevelopment.

Upheave's adaptability lay in designing workflows that served the distinct needs of both sales and facility teams, without forcing compromise. This balance was one of the most valued aspects of the platform at launch.

If your property or facilities management operations are expanding faster than your systems can handle, Upheave can help you scale without losing control. Let's talk about your roadmap!