[nycbug-talk] [OT] Office Space

[Charles Sprickman]

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 alex at pilosoft.com wrote:

> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005, Charles Sprickman wrote:
>
>> They would entertain anything that's somewhat near $25/square foot
>> depending on how friendly it is to tech business.
> You are one hopeful man. :)

Yeah, I know...  Shoestring budget.

> a) 25$/sqft constrains your choices significantly just based on real
> estate pricing. Rules out midtown, and constrains you to downtown.

That's totally fine.

> b) There are carrier hotels buildings which cater explicitly to businesses
> that need power/connectivity. There aren't that many of them: 111 8th, 60
> Hudson, 601 W 26, 32 AoA, 75 Broad. You probably don't want that - usually
> space there is quite a bit more expensive than in non-carrier-hotel. Also,
> space is rarely built out, and buildings

Good information, I'm fishing around and that's probably enough to save me 
the effort of looking at space like that.

> b) There are just buildings where there are lots of carriers. All
> Rudin-owned buildings are like that (55 broad, where I am, for example.
> 110 Wall, 32 AoA, 345 Park, 90 Pine). Out of my head, I can say that 50
> Broad, 60 Broad, 65 B'way, 100 William are like that.

I think that would more than meet their needs.  The current space is only 
4 stories and there's no fiber at all.  Just having a few majors in there 
and someone that offers newer services like metro ethernet would be a 
really great help.

> c) Generator - unless you are in a carrier hotel (see a) - fuggetaboutit.
> I am lucky enough to be in my current space where I have exclusive lease
> the on the sole genset of 55 Broad building, but things like that are rare
> or non-existant. If building doesn't have a genset, consider 150k$-500k$
> cost to install it (god bless Local 3). If building has a genset, it is
> probably already taken by someone for exclusive use.

Again, good information, and I suppose that means they should rule out 
doing anything long-term there that is totally mission-critical.

> d) Electricity - again, unless you are in a carrier hotel, you will be
> paying through the nose. *generally* the space in Manhattan comes with
> about 0.1A/sqft of power built. So, if all you want to put are 10 racks
> (300A), just take 5000 sqft of space and you'll have enough power. Maybe.
> If space does not come with adequate power, keep in mind, it will cost
> *high* amount of money to bring in power. This is in pretty much every
> building - again, thank the electricians unions and professional
> engineers. If you are talking about a large new lease, you may extract
> some money as concessions from landlord.

Yeah, also in the past most places I've worked have been smaller buildings 
where the union rules are a little loose.  But I imagine that in a 
highrise, everything is "by the book" and you pay out the nose.  Any idea 
how cross-connects between tenants are handled in a larger building?  Do 
they charge any recurring fees as a general rule once the fiber is 
installed?

> e) Connectivity - generally, downtown in a 20+ story building, buildings
> are "lit" by a fair number of carriers. I have lit building lists for
> various carriers that I work with, hit me up and I'll give it to you.
> There are some carriers that have publically available lists, but most
> don't.
> http://www.lglass.net/upload/buildings/NEW%20YORK_website%208-2004.pdf

That's good news.  I assume that if a ConEd or similar "new" carrier is in 
there there are options beyond the standard telco services.  For starters, 
a 10Mb ethernet drop that could be turned up to 100 in the future would be 
great.

> Generally, I think 25$/sqft in a nice "lit" building is tough. Definitely
> forget about genset though.

They can probably go a little higher if they are willing to shrink a 
little bit.  The space they are in now is a loft-like thing that is really 
too big for 10 people.

Thanks Alex,

Charles

> -alex
>
>