2021 Year in Review: Steven Andersen, Montroy Andersen DeMarco

Name: Steven Andersen

Job Title: Principal

Company Name: Montroy Andersen DeMarco

What was your greatest professional accomplishment or most notable project, deal, or transaction in 2021?
MADGI recently completed one of the most interesting restaurant spaces in Manhattan, for which our firm served as executive architect: Chef Daniel Boulud’s Le Pavillon at One Vanderbilt. In collaboration with Isay Weinfeld, our team designed a 11,000 s/f dining space that combines elements of classic French restaurants and nearly 1,000 s/f of lush interior landscape reminiscent of a temperate forest, all built beneath a 55 ft.-high ceiling. The interior features numerous custom finishes of natural stone and millwork, a feature wall of European Oak slats, cantilevered ceilings, multiple mature trees, an automated irrigation system, and custom interior and plant growth lighting systems.

What was the biggest lesson you learned while working during the pandemic?
100% remote work for office-based firms and departments is possible. Many firms are reducing real estate footprints and moving operations to lower cost locations. Laboratory and research operations have to be maintained, as they cannot be performed from employee homes. However, support operations, such as marketing and sales, can be done either remotely or on a part-time in-office basis. For example, we are currently redesigning offices and labs for a large client in the flavor and fragrance industry, which is consolidating its operations at a 165,000 s/f facility in New Jersey, while reducing its presence in Manhattan. For this client, MADGI is designing a new $10 million workplace that features hot-desking areas, laboratories, and numerous multi-function spaces such as employee pantries and rec rooms that can host events, smaller meeting and collaboration rooms, and phone booths. All of these spaces provide both comfortable team work environments and recreational facilities for employees.

What are your predictions for your industry in 2022?
Based on our current pipeline of design projects, the life science research and laboratory, healthcare, charter school, higher education, and cloud kitchen market segments will continue growing in New York City and the greater New York area. The future direction of brick-and-mortar retail market is still uncertain, however, restaurants are returning as a recovering sector, with new projects under design throughout New York City. The cloud kitchen sector supports both restaurants and delivery-only businesses, with new projects coming up in all five boroughs of the city.