A multi-tenant commercial building in Fremont, California typically splits security between a landlord who controls the perimeter and tenants who control their own suites. Under Fremont Municipal Code Chapter 9.10, an alarm that alerts police or anyone outside the building needs a permit tied to that occupancy, and permits never transfer between tenants or with the building.
By Jacob Ross, Security Specialist · Guardian Integrated Security · CA PPO #121089 · Last updated August 2, 2026
This guide is for whoever answers for a shared commercial building or business park in Fremont. Every figure below is linked to its source.
Why Fremont’s Tenant Mix Changes the Problem
Fremont’s commercial stock is overwhelmingly shared, and its occupants are not alike. The City calls its Bayside Technology Park the largest concentration of jobs in Fremont, over 30,000 of them across technology, life sciences and warehousing uses. Bayside runs west of Interstate 880 and holds over two-thirds of Fremont’s 50 million square feet of industrial space, per the City’s employment hubs profile.
Northwest of there, Ardenwood Technology Park is a 3 million square foot research and development hub whose older R&D buildings are increasingly repositioned for growth-stage life sciences companies. The Warm Springs Innovation District spans 850 acres.
One roofline can cover a contract manufacturer, a wet lab, a logistics operator and a twelve-person startup — different hours, different things worth stealing, different ideas of what closing up means.
What Multi-Tenant Building Security Has to Cover
Split a shared site into three layers and most ownership questions answer themselves. The perimeter is the landlord’s: fence lines, gates, parking, loading areas, roof access, lighting and cameras. So are the common areas — lobbies, corridors, stairwells, shared docks and trash enclosures. The space inside each suite belongs to its tenant.
Shared sites fail in the seams. A tenant alarms its own door and assumes somebody watches the car park; the landlord installs those cameras and assumes the recordings are watched. A camera nobody watches only reports what already happened.
The Fremont Police Department’s 2025 Annual Report records 461 commercial burglaries in 2025. That figure covers every business premises in the city and the report gives no breakdown by premise type or tenancy, so it is not a multi-tenant count; it also cautions that its statistics come from internal systems and that some reports may be reclassified later. The full series sits in our Fremont commercial burglary statistics breakdown.
Alarm Permits Attach to the Occupancy, Not the Building
This catches shared buildings out. Fremont police put it simply: you need a permit if your alarm is monitored or audible, and permits attach to the location per occupancy. The ordinance lists three exemptions, and the one that matters in a shared building is this: a system that alerts nobody outside the building, designed solely for security personnel employed by the owner or operator, needs no permit.
Permits are also not transferable from one person or location to another, and may not be transferred with the land or structure. There is no building-wide permit for a landlord to buy, and an incoming tenant inherits nothing.
Two obligations get missed. The permit must name three people who will service a malfunctioning alarm and who authorize access to the premises for a security check at any hour — awkward for a small tenant with nobody on site overnight. And the permit number must be posted at the front entrance, readable from outside.
Verification decides the rest. Fremont police give every non-verified alarm a lower-priority BOL, or be on the lookout, answered at officer discretion if a unit is nearby and free. Verification may come from sound, video, a panic button or an eyewitness account that a crime is occurring.
Choosing Coverage for a Shared Site
Live video monitoring puts a live agent behind the shared cameras. AI flags on-camera activity in under a second, an agent reviews it, speaks to the intruder through on-site audio, and alerts police with a description of what is happening — the verification the city asks for. Guardian can dispatch its own patrol units; police are notified, never dispatched by us.
Security patrol services suit a park rather than one building, covering several addresses with logged checks at irregular intervals. Security guard services fit where the job is staffed presence: a lobby, badging contractors, a dock.
Cost usually settles it. On-site guard coverage is typically billed at around $25 to $30 per hour, while live video monitoring runs under $3 per hour. The roughly 70 percent saving often cited for remote guarding is derived from that gap — not a quote, and not a promise about any particular site. Guardian prices each site individually.
Guardian Integrated Security has protected 2,700+ California businesses for 20+ years, with a BBB A+ rating and CA PPO #121089, and serves Fremont and the East Bay. To have a shared site assessed, request a quote or call 800-400-3167, or see our Fremont security services page.
Sources
- City of Fremont Economic Development: Real Estate, Development, Investment; Employment Hubs.
- City of Fremont, Municipal Code Chapter 9.10, False Alarms.
- Fremont Police Department, Alarm Permit Program and Verified Alarm Response and 2025 Annual Report.
