Responding to changes in demand - New York, New York architects seek government and institutional contracts due to lack of new commercial development - Architecture & Interior Design

Real Estate Weekly, Dec 16, 1992 by Lois Weiss

With little new development, architects are finding themselves busy with government and institutional contracts, storefronts, tenant consolidations and lobby renovations. Additionally, they say, their world is becoming more computerized and hand drafting is headed for extinction.

Ted Moudis, principal, Ted Moudis Associates, said the financial companies are having a record breaking year, but are not yet spending the money. Instead most companies are consolidating and redesigning to obtain a better use of the floor space by reconfiguring their open landscape furniture systems.

For instance, Moudis said, a law firm may want to get 20 percent more out of an existing 40,000-square-foot space. They may take a 400-square-foot office and make two offices or take the 250-square- foot to 300-square-foot offices and get two 120 square-foot to 150- square-foot offices.

"The frills are gone," Moudis said. "They are spending the money smartly." In most cases, he explained, the installations are not as extravagant. "You can show wood-trim base and molding but don't have to do wood floor to ceiling," he added.

Kathleen Giamo, director of sales and market for Reckson Associates, Melville, Long Island owners with 8 million square feet of primarily new offices, agreed that tenants are downsizing and are putting more people in less space.

For existing tenants, she said an in-house architectural and engineering staff works to reconfigure lighting and HVAC requirements, particularly air conditioning. While Reckson's buildings were constructed with extra capacity, Giamo noted that some older office buildings, without the capability of producing more air conditioning based on more people, will leave the tenants warm. Tenants don't always realize this, she added.

Because the tenants are taking less space for more people the pro rata share of parking is also a problem for some older suburban corporate properties. "Knock wood our parking lots are big," Giamo said.

Tenants are also trying to get the most out of the landlord, Moudis observed. Then they try to spend the least and get the most for their money, so there is less outlay for the tenants to improve their space.

Moudis said most installations are coming well within the cash allowance. He said some tenants have been able to negotiate up-front to be able to use this money to pay for soft costs such as consulting fees and furniture. "It really depends on the landlord and the deal. If they get $40 per square foot cash and spend $30 they try to get to use the other $10 for the other expenses."

Government Work

Roxanne Warren, principle of Roxanne Warren & Associates Architects, said as part of the New York City Safe Streets program she has a new project rehabbing a police precinct.

"It will welcome the public inside and create public facilities and an administration area," she said. It's an old grubby building and we're going to make it nice."

She said her firm is also making a proposal-for a project that would improve the entrances in 24 buildings for the New York City Housing Authority.

Warren is about to complete a $68 million 331,000-square-foot Northern Manhattan bus depot with three lobbies for the Metropolitan Transit Authority. A large 18-thor carved brick logo "M" has been created in a sculpted bar relief and emerges out of the facade. There are also pin mounted stainless steel letters on every entrance.

Lobby Focus

Moudis said the pre-war buildings that want to make themselves rentable are doing lobby renovation, redesigning elevator cabs and upgrading mechanical systems in order to make themselves marketable.

"It depends on the ownership on whether they spend the money," Moudis observed. "It has to be a sound owner or sound mortgagee."

Theo Prudon, a principal of Swanke Hayden Connell, said it is clear to most architects that their market is the basic upgrading of existing office buildings, including buildings of the 20's and 30's that need to be brought up to contemporary standards.

Robert Gray, principle in Machinist Gray Architects, are working on several office building renovations. Whereas they used to design whole buildings, now, he said, they are reconstructing parts of existing buildings for the clients who used to build new ones.

Gray said buildings five to 10 years old don't meet handicapped codes, and because of the competition for tenants, are having their lobby and corridor finishes and lighting redesigned. Some are also redoing mechanical systems that may have been redone once already in the 50's or 60's.

The firm is working on two buildings, both with 1,200 square foot lobbies. The midtown property, however, is redoing its plaza and canopy, too, and is spending five times more than the downtown property because of the nearby competition. "They are making their lobbies as good as the neighbors'," Gray said.

Additionally, Prudon noted, people are appreciating the qualities of the original materials and the classical designs of the older buildings. "Those elements that in the Sixties one would have covered get polished," Prudon said. "That is very much the trend right now as well as the most economical."