REAL ESTATE WEEKLY, February 27, 2018
Ken Colao, president of CNY, was a featured panelist at the Fourth Annual Anchin Construction & Development Forum held at the New York Academy of Sciences in Downtown Manhattan. “Recycle, Redevelop, Re-purpose: Smart Strategies for Maximizing ROI of Existing Buildings” was the panel topic. With an expertise in reconstruction and re-purposing properties, CNY is now working on two landmarks in New York City–the Woolworth Building and Tammany Hall. Colao shared how essential it is to be able to understand the impact to the ‘skeleton’ and skin of an existing building before embarking on re-purposing it, for both economical and practical reasons. Is the structural core changing? “Basically,” he said, “no surgeon would begin to operate without an X-ray or an MRI, enabling him to see the body’s structure before going in with a knife. Similarly, it’s crucial to be able to determine the status of an old building’s structure and core orientation before beginning. In-depth analysis and due diligence is absolutely necessary from the outset, including use of extensive 3D laser scanning, probing and surveying that will support accurate backgrounds. We advocate the use of Revit, that when coupled with in-depth analysis, is more costly up front, but will more than pay for itself over the course of the project.”
Ken Colao 