Amenta Emma Architects has grown since opening its Stamford office earlier this year by keeping tabs on regional economic development in Fairfield and Westchester counties.
The 25-year-old Hartford-based architecture and interior design firm opened in Stamford to serve an expanding clientele in the region, said Charles Cannizzaro of Chappaqua, N.Y., managing principal of the Stamford office.
Stamford is the prime market for corporate interior architecture with the strong flow of major businesses and stable of class-A office space, Cannizzaro said.
“Stamford is a great place for us to focus on what we specialize in, which is the design of corporate interiors. We did this to better serve our clients in this part of the state.”
The office has hired five staffers since opening and taken on Reckson Associates in Stamford, Media Space Solutions in Wilton and Family Children’s Agency in Norwalk as clients.
Tim Donohue from CB Richard Ellis Global Brokerage, which has an office in Stamford, said Cannizzaro, who was formerly with Perkins Eastman in Stamford, is considered to be a smart and valuable choice to head up the business”™ regional office because of his connections to the commercial real estate world and his link to economic development initiatives.
Cannizzaro said corporate architecture is experiencing growth as businesses continue to recover from the recession. He said businesses are in need of updates and remakes to create spaces that recognize business goals, most notably growth and sales.
“We design spaces centered on your needs, not just on what kind of image you”™re trying to convey,” Cannizzaro said.
As a leasing agent, Donohue has hired the firm to work on assets such as 1 N. Lexington Ave. in White Plains, N.Y.
Cannizzaro is an active member of and one of the architects of choice for the Economic Development Task Force of the Westchester County Association, a business group which is planning to launch a multimillion-dollar, multiyear campaign to revitalize Westchester”™s economy. Amenta Emma will lend its expertise to the campaign.
According to William Cuddy Jr., task force chairman and executive vice president at CB Richard Ellis, the initiative will be led by the private sector and will be a collaboration of the county”™s business community with Westchester County government and its economic development office, local municipalities and academia. He said a major focus would be Westchester County”™s commercial office market, where the task force aims to reduce the countywide excess of vacant office space by 50 percent or 3 million square feet.
“I am honored to be a part of this effort and look forward to the positive changes that we have planned for the region,” Cannizzaro said.
