Co-Op Lobby Renovation Advice
Our co-op is planning to do a fairly major renovation to the lobby and entrance of our building. The aim is to make a nice but slightly fugly building – mid 80’s sponsor “renovation” of a 1939 building – a lot nicer without spending a ridiculous amount of money. Does anyone have any advice from…
Our co-op is planning to do a fairly major renovation to the lobby and entrance of our building. The aim is to make a nice but slightly fugly building – mid 80’s sponsor “renovation” of a 1939 building – a lot nicer without spending a ridiculous amount of money. Does anyone have any advice from a similar experience or tips re architect/design firms that have done beautiful work in other Brooklyn buildings? Thanks in advance for any info.
uuuhhh!!! Parkboy, you sound exactly like me and sounds like my building situation (Almost Dejavu). we JUST hired someone and the work should start beginning of June after looking and pricing things out for 2 years!
I am new to the board and took on this project with other 6 board members only being involved in decision making process. We are a 90 unit building and had our lobby done last in 1986. Our building is a 1953 building.
I can give my advice if you have any specific questions if you like and after August, I will probably able to recommend the current guy, if he does a good job.
I am basically in agreement with Ringo and we first started the architect/design route and it was ridiculous pricing so we went with a contractor company and chose the finishes and wallpaper ourselves and literally saved 50% of the original price quoted. Much cheaper to do your own decisions.
Feel free to email me at BKJester3@aol.com.
Thanks for the great advice – much appreciated.
The building has about 60 units and a small board – I’m new to the board but half of the board members have been there a long time. They don’t intend to present the designs for shareholder approval at all – which surprised me when I asked them about it. They feel that trying to get everyone to agree or at least even form a consensus would be a nightmare and that it’s basically our job as the board to make decisions for good or bad. Having said that, there are a couple of people in the building with a design background who are getting involved in an informal sub-committee way. So hopefully getting everybody behind one design idea will not be an impossible task.
Jock do you do this kind of work in residential buildings?
If so could I contact you directly to talk about this further?
Thanks again all.
Here is how I deal with these, included in the fee is 3 schemes based upon the direction the building wants to go in. One revision is included to each scheme. After that, the clock starts ticking. I’ve a number of these for commercial buildings and it has not been that big a deal. One of those had many people to give approval on. Just depends how it is all set up.
Oh, I didn’t mean the design team would go around and around. I’m saying the board will jerk the design team around and around and it will cost a fortune. Someone on the board ALWAYS hijacks the process, and it’s NEVER the person you want to hijack the process.
I’m trying to get you away from that. Narrow the options early and with the shareholders input and then hand it to the designer. Otherwise, someone will put too much into it (and burn thru the designers hours), get married to their ideas, and by the time it gets to the shareholders it’s a mess. And by then the other board members are so sick of it, they’ll say OMFG, just do it nutso.
I disagree a bit with the above advice. I’ve done a few residential lobbies — enough to say I never want to do any again — and I’ve seen the problem of going around and around on a design not coming from the design side of things, but from the coop not coming to agreement and the issue then being “owned” by one board member versus another board member. If the board is small, agrees, and everyone loves each other, I could see the above approach working. But in most cases, the advantage of a “neutral” or non-coop member presenting the ideas and options is going to be very important in the actual mechanics of making decisions.
This is not to say that giving a brief to an architect with careful marching orders is a bad idea. But residential lobbies are a beast, a little like designing a single house to make ten clients happy at once. I would emphasize that a way to achieve success on the project would be to define, very clearly and carefully, the roles and responsibilities that each board member will take, which parts of the process are put to vote, and how the vote to approve the overall design will take place (general ballot of the whole building?).
Yes, I have some advice on this topic.
Ugh.
Is this a building with more than, say, 30 units? If so, if you start this job with a architect or design firm, you will end up spending a ridiculous amount of money.
My advice if to have a few board members go around your neighborhood and jot down the addresses of nicely done lobbies (in their opinion). Or pull pages from magazines. Everyone says they want something “classic” (except the few who want “cool” or “modern”), but that means something different to everyone. Different paint themes, lighting, furniture or not, etc.
Get 3-4 pictures with addresses of “inspiration” lobbies and post them in lobby. Encourage people to walk by. I really prefer addresses because magazine pictures and designer renderings can be very misleading. You want to manage expectations. THEN poll residents. THEN interview architect/designer/project manager. Can you help us achieve this? At this price? THEN hire them and let them do their thing.
Otherwise, you will go around and around and around all the while paying someone and you may end up with something that nobody is happy about. Even if it’s gorgeous, nobody is happy with a lobby that cost twice what they expected.