Author(s)

S. Dermisi

Abstract

Terrorist targets have changed through time from specific individuals, aircrafts and government or military related installations to office buildings. Considering recent terrorism attacks targeting office buildings the one that tops the number of victims is the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks in New York. This terrorism incident along with the threat of other attacks towards office buildings has modified the perspective of owners and management companies towards security of office buildings in a post September 11, 2001 context in the U.S. The initial reaction, of general security measures with an unclear prevention role, should be replaced by improved and more thorough decision-making process of prevention measures targeting specific types of threats for specific buildings. This paper proposes the development of a layered approach in terrorism prevention through the formation of Building Security Task Forces (BSTF), which will utilize a number of security measures outlined in the paper. The main role of a BSTF is the protection of their property by the implementation of existing security measures as well as cross-collaboration with law enforcement and emergency management agencies allowing the development of contingency plans to address terrorism most effectively. In addition, the city of Chicago is used as a case study, because of the several corporate headquarters, high-rise and trophy buildings. Keywords: office building security measures, office buildings, office property management, terrorism. 1 Introduction Terrorism has been used at an international level as a means of protest by politically, ideologically or religiously motivated groups, since the early nineteen

Keywords

office building security measures, office buildings, office property management, terrorism.