Seven Chicago buildings vied for TOBY awards at BOMA International's 2018 Every Building Conference & Expo in San Antonio last month. One of those buildings took home some hardware: 100 North Riverside Plaza won the International TOBY for the category of buildings between 500K SF and 1M SF.

The 36-story, 777K SF building beat out six competitors in the category. It is best known as Boeing's international headquarters. CBRE Senior Real Estate Manager Cory Roberts, whose team manages the building, said the TOBY validates his team's approach to property management.

"Our main focus is on keeping existing tenants happy and giving them a sense of community. We feel tenant retention is not a one-year approach," Roberts said.

CBRE has invested in its tech platform in recent years to shift tasks like invoicing, contract continuity and ordering to a cloud-based system. Roberts said this allows his team to focus on other things. Tenant surveys are a key indicator of the job CBRE is doing, and Roberts said his team keeps abreast of new tech trends to leverage them for efficiencies.

Six other Chicago buildings were in the running for International TOBY awards: 1K Fulton in the Earth category; 120 South LaSalle in the historical building category; 737 North Michigan for mixed-use; 205 West Wacker in the renovated building category; 626 West Jackson in the under 100K SF category; and 500 West Madison in the over 1M SF category.