When upgrades to the elevators at the Wells Fargo Center are complete, there won’t be any more up- arrow buttons to push in the building’s lobby. Instead, users will use a keypad to code in their destination and be directed to a car headed to that floor. The system reduces waiting and travel times and makes for less-crowded cars and fewer stops per trip.
Welcome to the new generation of elevators, already used for several years on both coasts and now making its way to Denver. The Wells Fargo Center, owned by Maguire Properties, will be one of the first few buildings locally to have so-called smart elevators.
“Everything you used to do on the inside of the elevator, you do on the outside,” said Gina Guarascio, general manager at Maguire Properties.
The Compass Destination Entry by Otis Elevator Co. “learns” changing patterns throughout the day, such as heavy one-way traffic in the morning and heavy two-way traffic during lunchtime.
“With destination dispatching, it completely takes away the waiting time in a lobby,” said Dilip Rangnekar, spokesman for Otis. “A traditional elevator uses an up and (a) down button. This is far more sophisticated. It uses very intuitive technology.”
The elevators also will improve accessibility to the disabled. Pressing a button with a wheelchair symbol will signal the elevator that a disabled passenger wants to board. The elevator that’s dispatched will be the closest to the lobby, and the doors will remain open longer than usual.
Maguire plans to install one bank of smart elevators a year for the next five years, Guarascio said. The company expects the upgrades will reduce elevator energy consumption by 40 percent, she said.
“With the energy reduction, it ends up being a smarter financial decision,” Guarascio said. “In lieu of doing a modernization and doing a retrofit down the road, it made sense to spend the money now.”
Margaret Jackson: 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to incorrect information supplied to a reporter, this story stated a “smart”
elevator being installed in the Wells Fargo Center is the first of
its kind in Denver. A handful of other buildings have similar
systems.