Fresh from a season in the company of Donald Trump on The Apprentice reality show, Frank Lombardi was looking to move his contracting business from his home in the Bronx to an office in Westchester County.
Two months ago, the 28-year-old businessman, one of the TV show”™s final four contestants, opened a fourth-floor office at 600 Mamaroneck Ave. in Harrison. The owner of Lombardi Contracting and Franchise Contractors, a startup partnership with his brother-in-law, John Fiorino, he shares a receptionist, fax and photocopy machine, mail service, lounge, conference and relaxation rooms with about 50 other tenants at the 76-office, 24,000-square-foot Synergy Workplace center.
“You have marketing companies, you have lawyers, you have consultants,” said Lombardi, describing some of the tenants he has met in the maze of offices and common rooms at his workplace. “You have networking here. It benefits your business.”
“Technology, attorneys, psychologists, marketing, real estate, insurance, financial services,” said Synergy”™s general manager, Tracey DiBrino, listing the varied businesses in Harrison that are clients in the growing international office-suite industry. “Some are one-man operations and some have up to 10 people.”
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Services, stress-free
Synergy charges $395 per person monthly for a package that includes telephone equipment and services and up to 2,000 minutes in calls; Internet access; faxing and copying; mail and overnight services; two hours per month of individualized support services and eight hours of conference-room time.
Monthly rents for full-time offices start at $500 per month. The company also offers day office rentals at $10 an hour. “It”™s for outsiders who need an office to come in and meet with someone,” DiBrino said.
“We don”™t base rents on square footage,” she said, “because we”™re including so many amenities. Sometimes people will try to compare us to traditional office space, but it”™s like comparing apples to oranges.”
The amenities include a “dot.calm room” where tenants can chill out to the soothing sound of water coursing over stones on a wall sculpture. The communal iPod there comes with song play lists that include user-friendly titles such as “Closed the Deal,” “It”™s Friday,” “Monday Music,” “I Need a Vacation,” “Stress Relief” and “Thinking Out of the Box.”
Trying “to make coming to work less dull,” the general manager said, Synergy holds wine tastings and parking-lot barbecues for tenants. Chair massages are available. In summer, an office delivery cart dispenses squeezed lemonade.
“It”™s an affordable alternative to (leased) office space and it also eliminates some of the headaches for some businesses in opening up their office space,” DiBrino said. “It”™s turnkey. It”™s ready for you. It”™s stress-free.”
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“Moving in was an easy transition for me and it was quick,” said Lombardi, who, starting on a smaller scale than his former mentor Trump, plans to break ground this month on a 7,000-square-foot retail building in Yorktown designed to attract strip-mall tenants.
“What”™s great is that everything here comes as a package,” he said. “One thing I like about it, I get one bill at the end of the month. If I were renting out my own space, I”™d have ConEd, the phone, furnishings, Xerox, secretaries and payroll. Really when you put it all into play, it”™s much more cost-efficient to be here.”
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Expansion plans
Synergy opened its office center here in 2004 in the Saxon Woods building formerly owned by the company”™s investment partner, Broadway Real Estate Partners L.L.C. Since then, it has expanded to 10 locations across the nation, most recently in Atlanta.
Its founder and president in Manhattan, former Putnam Valley resident Laura Kozelouzek, said the company plans to double the number of its locations by the end of this year and expand its Atlanta and downtown Boston centers. Trying a new concept in Atlanta, Synergy is adding a floor to provide “minisuites” of 750 to 1,000 square feet “for clients that require more space and less services,” she said.
“Our growth plan and our strategy is to continue to grow in the markets that we”™re currently in and fill in the gaps where we”™re not in the country,” she said.
Kozelouzek said the company wants to add more centers in metropolitan New York, where it also operates centers at 730 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan; East Rutherford, N.J.; and a “virtual” office that serves about 20 part-time users in Greenwich, Conn. It also plans to move into other “first-tier” markets such as San Francisco, she said.
Synergy also has offices in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boca Raton, Fla., Beverly Hills, Calif., and suburban Boston.
“I would say in 2008, I think we”™ll be in a position to consider some expansion in Westchester as well,” Kozelouzek said.
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Market demands
Kozelouzek, a former senior executive at HQ Global Workplaces, the nation”™s largest business office operator, said about six competitors operate business centers in the county. “Westchester is a pretty big county. Each of them has a different niche that they serve,” she said.
“It”™s actually not such a young industry. For many years it was made up of many mom-and-pop-type companies. I think with shared space and outsourcing, the tenant base is shrinking” for traditional office space. “It”™s becoming much more popular. People are more aware of it,” she said.
“One of the biggest draws for people is that they want to work close to their home, especially in Westchester,” Kozelouzek said. “The Westchester market lends itself to a lot of smaller entrepreneurs that want to stay close to their homes. In Westchester, unlike more cosmopolitan areas, you tend to attract the executive who would rather work three miles from his house, go home for lunch, see their kids perhaps, and just drive back to the office rather than take the train and go into the city.
“As the economy is strong, businesses are starting,” Kozelouzek said. “There”™s a greater demand” for these office suites, “but there”™s also a greater supply.”
There is not an oversupply, she said. “The trend of how people are working, I think you”™re going to see more and more business centers. I think you”™re going to find more business centers in class A buildings as time goes on.”
Changes in the economy are reflected as “micro-trends” in business centers, Kozelouzek said.
“The mortgage companies were growing like crazy. That”™s been a niche for the business centers. We saw that the mortgage companies were starting to shrink back even before everybody started talking about it” with the failure of the subprime lending market.
“Across the board, a continuing trend has been a lot of financial and hedge fund companies. That”™s grown dramatically over the last 10 years,” Kozelouzek said.
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