Avenue Living Group is a Calgary-based real estate company with two major divisions spanning Canada and the U.S., including Avenue Living Residential and a Mini Mall Storage business. As a real estate investment trust (REIT) and asset management operation, the company is built for scale—with a current portfolio of more than 500 residential locations in Canada, close to 300 in the U.S., and 250 mini mall storage retail locations across both countries.  

With an active M&A strategy, rapid acquisitions demanded fast, repeatable site onboarding—without creating technical debt—so every acquisition had to come online quickly, consistently, and securely.  

But as their portfolio expanded, the pressure on IT operations multiplied. Avenue Living needed a partner that could adapt to their operating model, standardize execution across locations, and help them scale without accumulating risk.  

Challenges: Growth outpaced a small internal technician team 

Avenue Living’s challenge was simple: the field team couldn’t scale fast enough. As growth accelerated, installs became rushed.  

“Cable management, installation, helping users get started…it was all very hurried,” Kathy Stuart, Avenue Living’s VP of IT Enterprise Services, shared. “Launching three or four storefronts could take a week, sometimes two, simply because our team was stretched.”

Kathy added that the launches created technical debt in the field, which led to ongoing support and maintenance issues. In a portfolio growing through acquisition, that debt compounds, keeping IT tied up in reactive work instead of strategic initiatives.  

Solutions: Turning Avenue Living’s IT team into quarterbacks  

To reduce technical debt and stabilize rollouts, Avenue Living turned to Vector Security Networks as a scalable field partner.  

One impactful solution Vector Security provided was getting technicians on site for support and maintenance across Avenue Living’s residential and retail locations—directly relieving the capacity bottleneck that was driving rushed, inconsistent launches. By taking on field execution and standardizing go-live processes, Vector Security Networks helped reduce rushed installs—the main driver of technical debt.  

The bigger change, however, was how acquisitions were executed. “They became our technicians on site,” Kathy said, describing how Vector Security Networks planned and staffed go-lives alongside Avenue Living. That model reduced the scramble, made deployments more repeatable, and helped prevent technical debt from building up with each new acquisition.  

The approach also allowed Avenue Living’s IT team to shift roles. “Now we could stand back and act as quarterbacks arranging the work, while Vector Security Networks organized the engineers and technical experts,” Kathy explained.  

As the partnership matured, Avenue Living leaned on Vector Security Networks to move to an expense management program. By the end of 2025, Avenue Living shifted away from managing bills internally, setting the stage for broader service monitoring from end to end. 

Vector Security Networks also helped tackle hurdles that slowed scale with solutions like PCI remediation, cable management best practices, and standards for pre-site surveys and documentation. 

Results: Fewer vendors, more strategic capacity, and a clearer path to support growth

Together, these solutions reduced vendor complexity and freed Avenue Living’s IT team to focus on higher-value work instead of ongoing site cleanup.  

Now considered a preferred partner of Avenue Living, Vector Security Networks delivered results-driven outcomes:  

• Vendor complexity dropped, reducing coordination friction across a distributed footprint. 
• Internal IT regained capacity by 50%-60%, allowing a shift away from ticket taking toward vendor management, project management, and higher-skill initiatives.  

Kathy also noted the highly personalized account management and project management expertise Vector Security Networks brings to the table, calling the partnership one of the best vendor relationships she’s had in more than 30 years in IT.  

As Avenue Living continues to expand, its collaboration with Vector Security Networks provides a scalable managed networks services advantage that supports its M&A strategy for growth. 

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