Richard Roth retires; Robert Sobel succeeds

Real Estate Weekly, Sept 22, 1993

Emery Roth & Sons, the well-known New York architectural firm, announced that its chairman, Richard Roth Jr., has retired and that his partner and cousin Robert Sobel, the firm's president and principal in charge of design, has succeeded him.

The firm said that Roth, who is moving to the Bahamas, will continue to serve on its board of advisors and act as its representative in Florida, the Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America.

"Our family's long-term strategy and the direction of our business has for some time called for greater activity in the international arena," said Sobel. "From his new base of operations, Richard Roth will continue to play an integral role in the further development of Emery Roth's practice."

Sobel becomes the fourth member of the family to head the prominent architectural firm since it was founded 95 years ago. He joined the company in 1976 when he and Richard Roth opened the firm's Houston branch office together, developing an international practice with major projects in the Far East. Eight years later, the Houston practice was moved and Sobel joined the New York office. He was named president of the firm in 1988.

As president of Emery Roth, Sobel has developed an important body of work in southeast Asia and China. Among these projects are two in Singapore that are the largest of their type in the city, Mandarin Gardens, a single-phase condominium development, and Parkway Parade, a suburban mixed-use development; Bangkok's Supakarn Tower, the city's largest retail and luxury condominium complex; the Peremba Headquarters office building in Kuala Lumpur; and the China World Trade Center, a 5.7 million square foot project in Beijing that is the largest commercial development in the country's history.

In New York, he achieved an equally impressive body of work with office towers at 17 State Street, 7 World Trade Center and 75 Park Place, and luxury apartment buildings such as The Oxford and St. James's Tower.

Sobel spent his early design career working with master architects Jose Luis Sert, Philip Johnson and George Nelson. He left New York for Houston where in the late 1960's and early 1970's, prior to founding the Emery Roth office there, he combined a career as a professor of architecture at Rice University with work as a designer for some of Houston's leading firms.

Sobel, who has received design awards from the American Institute of Architects and twice received Architectural Record's Award of Excellence for Design, is a native New Yorker. He has been widely published in both the United States and abroad. Sobel received his undergraduate and graduate architectural degrees from Harvard University.

Emery Roth & Sons pioneered the development of high-rise technology following World War II and was responsible for well over 200 corporate towers throughout the United States, including the New York World Trade Center, Citicorp Center, the Helmsley Palace and the MetLife (formerly the Pan Am) Building. Today, the firm is known internationally for the design of the four major building types which form the core of mixed-use development: office buildings, hotels, retail complexes and apartment buildings. The firm has extensive experience in integrating office buildings, hotels, high-density housing and retailing facilities with associated mass transit, parking, roadway and other urban infrastructure, including several of the largest multi-use developments completed in the United States.