The future does not plop from the sky fully formed, as it does in science fiction. It unfolds.
Stamford is becoming a tighter, more walkable and more welcoming city. It is emerging, if not exactly Future Shock-like, then darn fast indeed into a rethought century.
Before you know it you could be “serendipitously collaborating” or “casually colliding,” all while “hoteling” and, ideally, profiting.
As for the market, clients are willing to upgrade and to move across the street. Fresh blood can be lacking, however, which earned admonition from CBRE Inc. Executive Vice President Thomas R. Pajolek, saying, “We need to bring in from outside the market.” In a recent example of just that activity (New York’s loss): “NBC coming here was wonderful, wonderful,” he said.
As a city that grew up with the car ”“ its Interstate-centric glass towers attest to it ”“ Stamford is about to de-emphasize the car as its overarching and underpinning transport. In an equation that features the “densification” of office space ”“ a networked, wired work world ”“ workers won”™t call any one office home. They may work with R&D in the lab Tuesday, transport in the basement Wednesday, always in reach and intelligently utilizing space.
The new client base that looks to densify its workspace includes the many variables of the health care industry, plus the media, which is proving another a durable growth industry. Robert Caruso, senior managing director at CBRE, also cited a new and substantial lease themed at the veterinary sciences; younger tech-driven outfits, too.
Mass transit acts in concert with densification in the arena of parking, specifically regarding ungainly and expensive garages. A building is used more densely, but it does not provide more parking spots. Rather, a building might require improvements, but said Caruso, “Adding improved air conditioning and adding bathrooms is easier than a parking structure.”
The region’s storied finance outfits ”“ 30 percent of the world’s hedge funds are represented in southwestern Connecticut ”“ remain a force in commercial real estate, as evidenced by Greenwich’s stratospheric rents ($52 per square foot was cited). The county as a whole at about $36 per square foot is $10 per square foot dearer than commensurate space in Westchester County, N.Y. But the hedge funds are shrinking and their dominant position is fading. “We’re now in a regrouping mode, looking to New York as the market leader,” Caruso said. “And New York is seeing a lot of activity with tech companies right now.”
In Stamford’s medical crystal ball is growth, but in new ways, the city’s rising new medical center notwithstanding. Expect a medical industry operating on time-tested disciplines of retailing, such as demographics and traffic studies. Pajolek expects what he termed “extensions” of larger health care facilities to reach into the retail sphere. Pajolek said health ”“ with more needing care, the increased presence of nurse practitioners, “a lot changing” ”“ lends itself to the redeployment of current office space.
Stamford has crawled from the doldrums before and in so doing reinvented itself. In the late ”™80s and early ”™90s American business had discovered the Sun Belt. The city”™s leasing activity would need 13 years to absorb its losses.
“Two years later we had absorbed all losses,” said Pajolek, who works from 201 Tresser Blvd. in Stamford, where he and Caruso spoke on a recent afternoon. “I think the lesson is the markets move faster, more swiftly and with more force, than you’d expect.”
Leasing activity in Fairfield County is off its 10-year average, Pajolek said, but for the first time since 2006-07 there is sustained positive absorption of commercial space. The men agreed: It is a better market than it was six months ago.
As is being planned by the Department of Transportation and the state of Connecticut (CBRE enters the equation at the marketing phase) the city’s transit center envisions a total 700,000 square feet of mixed-use development. The major contractor is Stamford Manhattan Development Ventures. A Buffalo, N.Y.-based specialized builder of garages, All Pro Parking, who will tackle the new garage, with other subcontracts large and small still being determined.
The new Stamford worker either lives in Stamford’s burgeoning housing market or commutes, perhaps from Manhattan. With train traffic as a guide, the future is already here. The daily reverse-commute passengers (Grand Central to Stamford) now equal passengers on the traditional Stamford-NYC run.
The city is already different than just a decade ago (and not only because the famed Hole in the Ground is to be developed ”“ see separate story). It long ago shed its image as a burgh that rolled up its sidewalks at night, with entertainment and restaurants proliferating along with patrons. It is more of these “new faces” in business that Pajolek would like to see, noting, “At times we seem to pursue the same finite players.”
In the new Stamford, gone are ground-level parking garages. Parking is swept to the rear. Cafes, dry cleaners and other urban-village amenities will fill storefronts. The workspace upstairs is “hoteled” in the argot of commercial real estate. In this trend, workspaces are utilized for the tasks to which they”™re best suited. Workers shuttle between, for example, a teched-out workspace and a room suited entirely to communication.
“We have tenants with different criteria than in the past,” Pajolek said. “They’re looking for more people per thousand feet ”“ hoteling desks.” This, he learned recently and committed to his Smartphone “promotes casual collisions and serendipitous collaborations.”
The pieces of the current Stamford puzzle find a nexus at the regional transit center. The current on-site parking garage will be razed and a new parking structure with a development atop it will rise. Caruso acknowledged architectural details are still being hammered out, but optimistically used phrases like “crown jewel” and” world class” to describe it. Both men stressed its collaborative nature ”“ a partnership of public and private interests. Work is expected to begin next year.
“You will have a new sense of a place to work, to live and to play,” Pajolek said of the hub.
