Making sure 20,000 residents enjoy home, sweet home

Real Estate Weekly, Dec 21, 2005 by Steve Stadmeyer

Many things make managing Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town a special task, not the least of which is the complex's sheer size.

Located on 80 acres of verdant private park, Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town is comprised of 11,250 apartments spread among 110 buildings.

Roughly 20,000 people call Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town home, making our complex similar in population to many of New York City's suburban towns. Situated between Gramercy Park and the East Village, Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town is a community unto itself and our residents enjoy a neighborhood experience unlike any other in Manhattan.

The community experience is made possible by the efforts of hundreds of dedicated professionals. Along with standard management duties, we oversee a full 24-hour security staff, many registered as Special Patrolmen with the New York City Police Department. At any given time, we may also be managing up to 400 third-party professionals, maintenance and specialty contractors among them. Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town also dedicates full time staff for everything from recreation to senior activities, ensuring that each resident is able to engage in interesting endeavors without ever leaving the complex.

Each year we present a summer concert series and arrange for a variety of athletic activities. Residents can participate in such things as tai chi, chess club, and paddle tennis tournaments. This year thousands attended our annual Halloween festival, which is popular with residents both young and old.

The Community Center provides residents with such things as computer classes and presents occasional lectures. For those looking for more spontaneous activities, Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town offers fifteen playgrounds, its own bocce, volleyball and basketball courts, and paddle tennis. Our access to walking and jogging trails begins at Stuyvesant Cove Park and extends down the East River.

While maintaining and advancing the community aspects that make Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town so unique, management has also directed an extensive effort to modernize the property and improve the day-to-day living experience of tenants. These improvements, upon which we've spent more than $300 million, have established the property as one of Manhattan's leading luxury rental offerings.

Peter Cooper Village boasts newly designed lobbies and renovated hallways, and all elevators feature newly appointed cabs. The lobbies and hallways of Stuyvesant Town are currently being modernized and its elevators, nearly 200 in all, are being completely replaced. In fact, we are managing one of the largest elevator modernization projects occurring in the country at this time.

The complex's renovated units, spacious one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, now feature such amenities as kitchens with granite counter tops and maple cabinetry, along with marble and tile bathrooms with top-end fixtures.

Our neighborhood is one of New York's safest, and maintaining a secure environment for our tenants and their guests is management's top priority. As a result, a large part of our renovation effort has focused on security.

We've improved lighting throughout the property, installed seven security booths at strategic locations around the complex, and built a street-level security command center that is staffed 24 hours a day. In addition, we've installed a state-of-the-art electronic security system that features nine Code Blue Kiosks positioned throughout the grounds of Peter Cooper Village. These kiosks connect callers directly to live security personnel, allowing for voice and video communication.

But again, you can't have a community without the proper setting. In the middle of Manhattan, we are very fortunate to have ample open space and private parks. Our open space often impresses first-time visitors, and long time residents regularly cite this feature as one of their favorite things about living at Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town.

In the past few years, outdoor renovations have been extensive. The centerpiece of our wonderful open space is the Stuyvesant Oval, nearly three acres of grassy lawn surrounded by large trees. The Oval, which hosts our summer concert series and other activities, is highlighted by the Oval Fountain, which has been renovated to include more than 40 jets that propel water in a cylindrical fashion. The fountain is illuminated from dusk until midnight.

While the world has changed a great deal since the first tenants moved in more than 50 years ago, Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town remains one of the premier rental properties in New York City.

Although we do things on a slightly larger scale, we never lose sight that each management decision must be made in the spirit of maintaining the high standards of service, safety and community-mindedness that have come to define Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town.

Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town is managed by Rose Associates, Inc. Based in New York City, Rose Associates is a developer and manager of quality commercial, retail and residential properties throughout the Eastern Seaboard with projects in New York City, Connecticut and the greater Boston area.