The American Bank Center is an entertainment complex located in Corpus Christi, Texas owned by the city of Corpus Christi and managed by ASM Global (formerly SMG). This multi-use facility consists of the 10,000-seat American Bank Center Arena, the 2,500-capacity Selena Auditorium, and a 138,000-square-foot American Bank Center Convention Center.

Surveillance System Challenges

As the American Bank Center facilities grew and evolved over the years, a variety of video surveillance cameras and access control and monitoring systems were installed to keep pace. However, these deployments ultimately resulted in a patchwork of technologies, with varying levels of image quality and varying degrees of effectiveness. In addition, the surveillance network was hosted on a shared network that resulted in slow connection speeds due to the network’s limited capacity and security firewalls. Further challenges were routinely encountered because recording was done on 12 separate Network Video Recorders (NVRs) located throughout the facility. When incidents did occur, it required extensive time to search through hours of video, often to discover the desired footage was not available or was unusable.

American Bank Center management and the city of Corpus Christi recognized it was time to upgrade the center’s surveillance and wireless communication systems. Funding was approved to contract the purchase and installation of new state-of-the-art solutions.

BearCom was offered an opportunity to propose a new system with the requirement that the proposal must submitted within 30 days in order to meet a fiscal budget deadline. With the deadline in mind, BearCom was provided full access to conduct an extensive inventory of the existing system and inspect the legacy analog/digital cameras, Network Video Recorders (NVRs), cabling, and the network layout. Working closely with American Bank Center staff, BearCom was able to prioritize and categorize all critical security areas as well as identify new and desirable video scenes.

One week before the deadline, BearCom presented a proposal to American Bank Center for a new Avigilon surveillance system consisting of 116 high megapixel Avigilon cameras, a new dedicated fiber network, dual Command Center monitoring stations, and Avigilon’s largest Network Video Recorder with capacity to store up to 90 days of video footage.

With budgetary goals in mind, BearCom proposed to use existing and viable network resources, so long as they did not compromise performance of the new system. Camera connectivity was classified into 3 categories for purposes of labor pricing:

Additionally, American Bank Center will be implementing BearCom’s VADOR (Video Alerts Dispatched Over Radio) technology, which sends (human voice) audio alerts over the radio dispatch system when certain analytic events are triggered. This proprietary technology fromBearCom allows security personnel to be alerted even when they step away from the Command Center.Using specialized equipment from Avigilon, BearCom was able to cover more visible area with fewer cameras. The resulting cost savings in labor and equipment allowed American Bank Center to leverage the city’s available budget and install a new digital radio communications system.

To support the Center’s various departments, the new radio solution BearCom deployed is a private on-site Motorola Solutions MOTOTRBO Capacity Plus system with a single repeater operating on 16 radio channels along with 150 portable radios. This radio fleet is large enough to support American Bank Center’s largest events and still has capacity for additional rental radio users if needed. The new surveillance system has already proven to American Bank Center personnel its superior performance over their previous system. In the transition phase of the installation, the new cameras caught someone vandalizing the facility. On the previous system, the perpetrator was not identifiable on the footage captured. When the new Avigilon system content was reviewed, the suspect was easily identified and subsequently turned over to the Corpus Christi authorities for prosecution.