Office towers can create multiple lobby entrances, elevator banks and signage to provide special tenants with so-called building-within-a-building identities.
These makeovers are easier to accomplish on corner or full block buildings, where entrances can be renumbered for the exclusive use of the tenant. But it’s also possible to create another entrance out of a back door or freight entrance where the building ambles through to a different street.
Craig Panzirer, vice president and director of leasing for Monday Properties, said such renovations are considered by a lot of owners. “It’s an ever-changing trend with tenants who want to establish an identity,” he said.
Divisions can also be made to larger lobbies to provide the special flavor that says it’s all about you, the tenant.
The owners of Two Herald Square, on Broadway between 34th and 35th streets, managed to create not two but five different entrances for the various tenants.
The large retailers, Victoria’s Secret and H&M, each have their own entrances, and ad agency Publicis, with 100,000 feet, has its lobby on Broadway while folks at Mercy College scoot in from 35th Street.
Jason Brown, CEO for RFR Holdings, which recently sold Two Herald to the Sitts, added: “The fourth and fifth floors are shoe showrooms and they also have their own entrance on 34th Street.”
Mitchell Konsker, senior vice president of Cushman & Wakefield, said maintaining an extra lobby can be pricey because they need additional security.
“It can be very costly, and a lot of tenants don’t want to pay because they have to man the lobby with security, and it also costs a lot of money to build,” he said.
Separate lobbies are great, however, schools and government offices that have distinctive and numerous visitors. “It preserves the appearance and the décor of the main lobby,” said Marcus Rayner, principal of CRESA Partners.
The owners of 75 Broad St. rented a large space to the city for a high school, and then created a new lobby just for the students.
“We took a disgusting, dirty old loading dock and beautified it so it could accept children coming in and gave them two elevators,” recalled Daniel Blanco, now a principal with Broad Street Development.
“You can’t bring [students] into the front door and you can’t have the two tenancies co-mingling.”
At the end of last year, Broadway Dance leased 25,000 feet on the third floor of the mid-block building at 321 W. 44th St. and obtained its own entrance at 322 W. 45th St. The deal was enticing, Rayner said, but it was for a high-traffic use.
Brian Waterman, vice chairman of Newmark Knight Frank, has worked on many such reengineered entrances.
In 1998, he and Barry Gosin, chairman of NKF, won the prestigious Real Estate Board of New York Most Ingenious Deal of the Year Award while representing the Federation Employment Guidance Services in its 210,000 foot lease at 315 Hudson St.
Building owners Jack Resnick & Sons identified an old freight area that was boarded up and recaptured several tenant and freight elevators to create a separate entrance and a distinct building identity for the federation.
“FEGS is a major, not-for-profit and wanted some prestige,” said Waterman.