Office Building Security in Orlando
Nexus Security Firm staffs office buildings in downtown Orlando and the suburban parks with licensed officers who hold the lobby, sweep the garage and close the building at night. Dispatch is staffed 24 hours a day, every day.
What an officer at an office building does on shift
An office post is a fixed set of duties written into post orders before the first shift, so the officer works to your instructions instead of a general idea of security work. A standard downtown assignment covers the lobby during tenant hours, credential and visitor handling at the desk, interior floor walks on a set rotation, stairwell and restroom checks, a sweep of the parking deck, locking the perimeter at close, and a log of everyone who came through after hours.
Beyond the routine, the officer is the person tenants tell. Suspicious activity in the garage, a dispute between employees, a delivery driver refusing to leave, someone sleeping in the stairwell: the officer handles what can be handled on the ground and calls Orlando police when it crosses a line. Incidents are documented and the documentation goes to your property contact, so a tenant who raises something weeks later has a record behind it.
Nexus Security Firm staffs and patrols. The building keeps whatever equipment it already has, and we neither install, service, design nor remotely monitor alarm, camera or access control systems, because that work sits under a separate Florida certification.
See what a staffed post at your property runs per month
A standing post is billed by the officer hour, so the coverage pattern sets the cost. Five questions turns a schedule into a monthly and annual range you can hold a proposal against.
Built from Florida wage data (ZipRecruiter, Salary.com, Indeed, 2026) and the 1.5x to 2x bill-rate markup reported for the industry (Belfry Software, 2026). A walk of the property sets the actual rate.
Who calls about an office building post
Property managers and facilities managers make most of these calls, usually after tenant pressure rather than after a single crime. The pattern is familiar: a tenant on a high floor complains about the garage stairwell, a second tenant mentions it at renewal, and the manager needs coverage in place before the lease conversation.
The other common trigger is the building next door. Downtown Orlando office towers sit close to street level activity, and vagrancy on commercial property is the single most persistent subject in commercial real estate discussion, ahead of burglary. Owners of Class B stock in and around downtown, along the Colonial corridor, and in the Maitland Center and Lake Mary style suburban parks buy coverage for the doorway, the deck and the hours between the cleaners leaving and the first employees arriving.
A third group is buying a replacement. Property managers describe going through half a dozen security companies, with large national firms named among the worst, and the failure is nearly always coverage that stopped showing up rather than an officer who did something wrong.
Office posts are usually unarmed, and here is when they are not
Most office buildings are staffed unarmed, because the daily work is credential handling, presence and reporting. An unarmed officer holds a Florida Class D license, which requires 40 hours of FDACS approved training and runs on a two year cycle (FDACS Division of Licensing).
A post moves to armed when the risk at that post argues for it: cash handled on site, a tenant in a high risk trade, a documented history of armed incidents at the address, or a lone overnight officer in an isolated deck. An armed officer adds a Class G license, which carries 4 hours of firearms requalification each year of the cycle (FDACS Division of Licensing), and bills roughly $8 to $12 an hour above unarmed. Working officers are candid that arming should follow the actual risk at a post, and that the added liability is hard to justify on a quiet building.
Uniform matters as much as armament in an office. A blazer and slacks post reads differently to a Class A tenant than a tactical uniform does, and we set that with you when the post orders are written.
What an office building post costs in Orlando
Unarmed office coverage in Central Florida runs about $24 to $34 an hour, and armed about $32 to $46. A 12 hour overnight post, seven nights a week, lands in the mid five figures a year at the lower end of that band, which is why the coverage pattern matters more than the hourly number.
The build of the rate is public arithmetic. Florida officer wages run about $14 to $18 an hour unarmed and $18 to $26 armed (ZipRecruiter, Salary.com and Indeed, August 2026), bill rates run 1.5x to 2x the wage, the officer takes roughly 70% of the rate, and about 10% goes to indirect cost (Belfry Software, 2026). What is left covers general liability and workers compensation insurance, supervision, uniform and equipment.
Factors that move your number: overnight and weekend hours, holidays, short notice starts, armed status, a single short shift a week, bilingual requirement, CPR and first aid certification, and whether the officer needs a patrol vehicle for a multi building campus. A quote far below the band is buying someone too cheap to keep, and industry turnover of 77% in 2024 (ASIS International) is what that looks like from the tenant side.
What Orlando adds to an office building assignment
Orlando office buildings carry visitor traffic that most markets do not. The city drew 76.7 million visitors in 2025 (Visit Orlando), and the convention center runs roughly 200 events and more than 2 million attendees a year with a $4.6B economic impact (OCCC / Orange County), which fills downtown and International Drive offices with people who have legitimate business and no badge. A desk that can process a visitor in thirty seconds keeps the lobby moving during a show week.
Hurricane season changes the assignment between June and November. Buildings need a walk after a storm passes, standing water and debris flagged, doors that no longer latch reported, and a presence while the power is out and the building sits dark with tenant property in it.
Construction is the third factor. Downtown and Lake Nona have been under continuous build out, and an office tower with an active site next door inherits the traffic: contractor vehicles in tenant spaces, material on the sidewalk, and after hours access requests that nobody at the building authorized.
How to check a security agency license in Florida
Every license in this trade is public record, and checking takes two minutes. Nexus Security Firm holds FDACS Class B agency license B 1900066, searchable on the FDACS Division of Licensing public lookup, where the record shows the class, the status and the dates. Individual officers hold their own Class D license and armed officers hold a Class G, and both can be checked the same way.
Orlando competitors commonly write that they are licensed and insured without printing a number. A number you can search is the only version of that claim worth anything, and it is fair to ask any bidder for one, along with proof of general liability and workers compensation coverage.
One more check applies when a vendor offers to put in cameras or a card reader as part of the deal. That work falls under Florida alarm system contractor certification, which is a different credential from a security agency license, and a firm that holds one does not automatically hold the other.
Posts often combined at one property
These are the posts most often written into the same property agreement.
Setting up an office building post
Four steps from the first call to an officer on the lobby desk, with the scope written down at each stage.
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The call
Describe the building, the tenant mix, the hours that concern you and what has been reported lately. Dispatch is staffed 24 hours a day, every day.
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The walk
A supervisor meets you at the property and walks the lobby, the deck, the loading area, the stairwells and the after hours entrances, and asks when incidents have been happening.
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Post orders and rate
You get written post orders covering the tour route, the visitor procedure, the escalation path and who gets called at 2am, along with the rate and the factors behind it.
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Start and supervision
Officers begin on the agreed schedule, the supervisor attends the post across the rotation including overnights, and incident documentation comes to your property contact.
Ready to start? Call (407) 706-3431 or Request Coverage.
Why office buyers choose Nexus Security Firm
Post orders written for your building
The officer on your lobby works from written instructions built during the property walk: the tour route, the visitor procedure, what to do about a tenant dispute, when to call police, and who at your company gets a call at 2am. Buyers say the bland generic offer is what makes vendor selection so hard, and a post with no written orders is where that shows up later as an officer who did the wrong thing confidently.
Post orders agreed in writing before the first shift.
Supervision you can point to
Each post has a supervisor on the account who attends the site across the rotation, overnights included. The most repeated vetting advice among property managers is to ask who supervises the post, how often they physically attend, and what happens when an officer calls out an hour before shift. Industry turnover of 77% in 2024 (ASIS International) is the reason those questions exist, and an agency that cannot answer them is answering them anyway.
Industry turnover reached 77% in 2024 (ASIS International).
A license number on the page
FDACS Class B agency license B 1900066 belongs to Nexus Security Firm and sits on the public FDACS lookup with its class, status and dates. Officers hold Class D licenses backed by 40 hours of FDACS approved training, and armed officers add a Class G with 4 hours of firearms requalification a year (FDACS Division of Licensing). Every number here is yours to check before you sign anything.
FDACS Class B agency license B 1900066.
What Reddit Says About Office Building Security in Orlando
Property managers on Reddit are blunt about vendor churn. One described working through half a dozen security companies, with large national firms among the worst performers, and the recurring failure is coverage that stops arriving rather than an officer who misbehaves.
The red flag they warn each other about hardest is a vendor who blames the officer. An apartment manager described months of theft and break ins with guards on duty, and every conversation ended with the company offering to fire that guard and send someone better trained, while nothing about the arrangement changed. Coverage gaps sold as coverage draw the same warning: buyers who bought a few hours on a few nights and were hit during the hours they did not buy.
The questions buyers tell each other to ask are consistent: who supervises this post and how often do they physically attend, including overnight; what happens when an officer calls out an hour before shift; can I see the written use of force policy; what are the officers on this contract paid. Property managers also report that tenants see things and say nothing for days, so making it easy to tell the officer at the desk matters more than most building policies.
Those are the questions worth putting to any bidder in Orlando, including us, and the answers should come with a license number attached.
A typical downtown office call
The situation: A common call from a property manager running a mid rise downtown: two tenants have reported people sleeping in the parking deck stairwell, one employee was approached walking to a car after 7pm, and the cleaning crew has been propping the loading door open on their way out. Nobody has been hurt and there is no police report worth the name, but a tenant renewal is due in the spring.
What gets done: A supervisor walks the building and finds the actual problem is a two hour window: the cleaners leave at 6:30pm, the last tenants leave between 7 and 9pm, and the building is unattended through all of it. The recommendation is a staffed evening post from 5pm to 11pm on weekdays with a written tour that hits the deck stairwells every rotation, escorts on request from the desk, and a hard close of the loading door with a log of who used it. The overnight stays unstaffed, since incidents have all landed in the evening, which keeps the contract smaller than the manager expected.
How it turns out: The stairwell traffic ends within the first two weeks, because the people using it move to a property with nobody in it. The escort requests turn out to be the part tenants mention at renewal. The evening logs give the manager something to show the owner when the security line item comes up in the budget, and the arrangement stays as it is because the hours that were bought are the hours that had the problem.
Office building security questions
What Orlando property and facilities managers ask before an office post starts.
Call (407) 706-3431