Are the Insides Looking Up?

Some See Brighter Future for Interiors Work in 2004

By Natalie Keith

A recovering economy could bring more interiors work in 2004.

"There's probably a cautious optimism at the moment that some of the work that may have been deterred because of a gloomy outlook may move forward," said Ambrose Aliaga-Kelly, vice president of Gensler, an architecture firm based in New York, N.Y.

In some property categories, doing routine renovation work is critical to staying competitive. For instance, office building owners must do work to retain existing tenants and attract new ones, and hotel owners must make improvements to attract fickle customers. For most companies, interiors work comprises a substantial portion of their business. At Gensler, 40 percent of its national business is interior architecture and, in New York, 73 percent of jobs completed are interior architecture work.

"Hotels are driven by capital investment," said Roland Ferrera, AMEC Construction Management vice president and director of business development. "You have to do renovations to be competitive."

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Richard Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, said many questions persist about the outlook for 2004, but interiors could be bright spot.

"You can't forego interior renovations forever," he added.

Some in the industry, however, do not have as sanguine an outlook for 2004. Rory DeJohn, vice president and general manager for Turner Construction, Interiors Division, said he has talked to brokers and others regarding the 2004 office leasing market in the New York City area. Despite the recent economic upswing, many brokers are predicting a flat leasing environment with flat absorption rate for 2004.

There will be a few large interiors projects up for grabs, such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and fit-outs for large law firms, but there will be fierce competition for the projects, DeJohn added.

"Competitors have been taking work at cost just to keep people working," he said.

Despite the sluggish environment, there are still some noteworthy projects being completed. Following are some examples of interior work being done in various sectors:

Office

AMEC Construction Management is the construction manager for a $14 million renovation of consulting firm KPMG's headquarters at 345 Park Ave.

"It's their office of the future," said Chris Weiss, project superintendent with AMEC based in New York, N.Y. "They try to keep their offices standardized around the country."

The renovation, which AMEC won through a competitive bid process, covers 400,000 sq. ft. and is divided into two parts. The first part covers the second floor, primarily office space encompassing 63,000 sq. ft.

The work includes installation of new HVAC, sprinkler and electrical systems, bathrooms, pantries and architectural finishes. AMEC is also overseeing the owner's vendors, including the lighting supplier, carpet vendor, audio/video consultant and the furniture vendor.

"It's one of the larger single-use renovations in the city right now," said Larry Capelli, project executive with AMEC.

Preconstruction activities started in July with the work starting in October. The job is scheduled to be completed by summer 2004.

The second part involves the Lexington Avenue level of the building with the construction of a new data center while maintaining operations of the existing data center. This floor requires extensive HVAC work, a new preaction sprinkler system and new electrical services.

After the Lexington Avenue level work is completed, work will start on the training center on the Park Avenue level. Renovations on this high-end space will include 14-ft. ceilings, stone flooring, wood paneling and under-floor electric and data system to accommodate varying functions within the center. The center can be used as one large room or be divided into three separate rooms, each with full audio/visual capabilities.

The final phase of the project is construction of a café on the Lexington Avenue level. High-end finishes will include terrazzo flooring, glass tile on the walls and decoustic ceiling panels. In addition to the finishes in the public area, the kitchen area includes extensive plumbing and electrical equipment installation and a new elevator for food delivery.

"We try to emphasize doing things the right way instead of offering Band-Aid solutions," said Jimmy Alicea, project manager with AMEC.

Retail

Building a brand into the interior of a retail environment is nothing new, said Les Hiscoe, vice president of the retail group at Shawmut Design and Construction based in Boston, Mass.

But in recent years Shawmut, a construction management firm, has been brought into the development process earlier, working with image specialists to foster brand awareness.

"We come very early into the design phase, sometimes before the architect comes in and sometimes shortly after," Hiscoe said. "This allows us to price materials early so we can set budgets."

Shawmut has worked with brand consulting firms, such as Lippincott Mercer and Interbrand, both Manhattan-based companies. Over the past 12 months, the company has completed more than 68 store locations for 14 retailers such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Fleet, Polo Ralph Lauren and Apple.

As part of its involvement in a project, Shawmut identifies problems, adapts designs and works with the branding firm to fine tune the project and ensure it is completed on time and on budget. Specialty flagship stores for prototype locations require hand-selected stone floors, custom-design finishes and complex glass, steel and wood millwork packages.

Randall Stone, a partner at Lippincott-Mercer, has worked with Shawmut prototypes for Champs, Citizens Bank, Feet and Footlocker.

"Brand building looks at the many touch points that define the customer experience - from logo development and merchandising to the design of the facility itself," said Stone. "For retailers, it is not just the product, but also the environment that communicates the brand."

Residential

In designing the condominiums for Time Warner Center, capitalizing on the spectacular views was critical, said Ismael Leyva, president of Ismael Leyva Architects, PC., in New York, N.Y.

"If there is a particularly good view, then we try to design apartments to take advantages of those views," said Leyva, who was the residential architect and designer for 191 luxury residential units at Time Warner Center.

With its floors high above the treetops in Central Park, Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle is one of the best locations for a residential building in the country. So Levya, one of a team of five architects led by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill on the project, tried to make the best use of the view to maximize the marketability of the building.

While the size and number of bedrooms is determined by the project's marketing team - who are experts on the condominium sales market - the layout and other aspects of the interior are designed by Levya.

The units are designed so that living rooms and master bedrooms - the most frequently used rooms in residences - have the best views.

"We tried to design units so that when you open the door, you get sweeping views," he said.

At the lower levels there are four units on each floor, but at the higher levels, the apartments are larger so there are fewer per floor.

The building was built with concrete instead of steel, which allowed for greater flexibility in design. "With concrete you can locate columns where you want as long as there is enough space between them," Levya said.

Time Warner Center is one of the rare residential buildings in New York City that contains duplexes, which comprise about 10 percent of the units. Duplexes were considered because units had to contain a certain amount of square footage to be marketable, Levya added.

"The only way you're going to create larger apartments and still capture the view is to stack them," he said.

Hotel

To attract and retain customers, hotels must do interior work continuously. With that in mind, the Grand Hyatt on 42nd Street is undergoing a $20 million project to upgrade hotel rooms.

"Hotels have to perpetually do facelifts to stay competitive," said AMEC's Capelli. AMEC is the construction manager on the job.

The project involves the renovation of about 1,400 guest rooms, with new finishes in the bathrooms, wood base, vinyl wall covering, electrical outlets and carpets.

The entire building will receive a completely new fire alarm system as well as new electrical panels on every floor for adequate power distribution. Also planned are an upgrade of the cable TV system throughout the hotel and upgrades to existing meeting rooms and public spaces with new paint, vinyl wall covering and carpet.

The hotel will be operational throughout the nine-month renovation, with 500 rooms out of service at a time. With future events planned, such as the Republican National Convention in the summer, AMEC is working under an aggressive schedule for completing the project.

As with other interior jobs, hotel jobs require recognizing that "you are a guest in somebody else's house," Capelli said. "Completing the job on time and on budget and without interrupting existing operations is critical to obtaining future work.

"We're in their house so we have to make sure our visit is welcome."