Şişli is where residential and commercial use are most thoroughly intertwined. Office buildings and residences line the Mecidiyeköy, Esentepe and Fulya corridor, while Kurtuluş, Feriköy and Bomonti hold apartment stock approaching a century old.
Managing mixed-use buildings
Şişli’s most characteristic building has offices or shops on the lower floors and flats above. In those buildings the manager’s job is less technical than diplomatic.
The commercial occupier brings long opening hours, heavy footfall and a lot of refuse; the resident wants quiet and security. The flashpoints are always the same: noise at night, common areas used for business purposes, delivery and visitor traffic, refuse arrangements.
The answer in these buildings is not to try to reconcile the parties but to put the rules in writing by assembly decision. Once hours of use for common areas, refuse arrangements and the entry procedure are entered in the decision ledger, the argument stops being personal.
The reality of services in older stock
A large share of the buildings in Kurtuluş and Feriköy date from between 1950 and 1970. In them the electrical installation, the water risers and the old pipework left after conversion to natural gas are the principal risks.
Our recommendation for these buildings is straightforward: establish the condition of the services before a fault occurs and tie renewal to a multi-year plan. Work such as replacing risers cannot be funded in one go; planned, it becomes manageable.
In towers and office buildings
Along the Mecidiyeköy and Esentepe corridor, management is built around generator and UPS redundancy, air conditioning, fire detection systems and round-the-clock security. Maintenance and refurbishment are planned outside office hours. Keeping the statutory inspection certificates complete and archived is the first thing asked for in an inspection.