Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Law firm bringing artisticrenewal: a magnum Opus

Englander and Fischer has innovative plans for its neglected acquisition.

By PAUL SWIDER, Times Staff Writer
Published January 2, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - When he bought the decrepit apartment building next door to his law office, Lenny Englander said, police told him it was good news and bad. Good news that a weathered structure catering to problem renters would get a new life; bad news because police searching for criminals knew they often could find them there.

"We're definitely doing urban renewal for the block," said Englander, of Englander and Fischer PA, which last year bought the Opus, a 12-unit apartment building that sits right next to Englander's office at 721 First Ave. N.

Englander said his firm will someday expand into the building, but for now he and partner Worth Blackwell are renovating the 1920 building into executive and virtual offices to meet downtown demand. They gutted the building and are redesigning the outside so it will join their current building and appear as one large, uniform structure.

Some of the office space is already rented, even though the inside of the building is skeletal and project completion is still three months off. The remaining office rents range from $750 to $1,500 a month, which will include shared use of a conference room, kitchen, outdoor courtyard and standard office facilities like phones, high-speed Internet access and a receptionist.

The virtual office is a newer concept for this area, though they've existed in larger cities for years. For $250 a month, virtual renters will have access to all amenities and limited use of an office space for five hours.

"They can work from home but still have an office for meetings," Blackwell said. "It gives somebody a larger image than they otherwise might have."

The firm bought the building in 2006 for $700,000 and planned to spend another couple of hundred thousand on renovations. But working with an older building can make life difficult as that budget has now risen to as much as $400,000.

"It's very difficult to try to predict a building like this," said Jason Sanchez of JMS Group, the contractor building the designs of Wedding and Stephenson and Tampa-based Urban Innovations. "You don't know what's inside until you get into it. We've run into a lot of obstructions."

For one, the building's walls are made of terra-cotta bricks filled with concrete. Drilling into them causes the terra-cotta to crumble, so Sanchez has had to improvise. Workers also discovered abandoned heating-oil tanks and asbestos insulation that had to be removed.

"It would have been cheaper to knock it down," Englander said. "But why destroy it?"

Englander said the firm could have more expensive high-rise space and pass the cost to clients, but the team of 13 attorneys and 15 support staff like working in a building with character. Englander is applying his preference for art deco to the combined structure's look and feel.

The new building will add some decorative features like vertical wall flourishes and "eyebrow" awnings over the windows. The three circles in the glass over the front door will also become a design theme throughout the structure. Englander is also adding a faux parapet to the old building's roof so the heights of the structures will match.

"We call him Picasso," Blackwell said. "And I get to figure out how to pay for it."

The plan was also to make the building as green as possible, and Sanchez is adding features like Energy Star appliances, compact fluorescent lights, high-efficiency air conditioning, and Icynene, a spray-on insulation that seals the roof from the inside. But Englander is not getting the new windows he wanted because the state building code would have required massive re-engineering for wind protection. Keeping the old windows avoids this but also makes the building less hurricane resistant.

The work will also construct an atrium between the original structures and add walkways connecting both stories, no mean feat because the old building is 18 inches higher than the new. The project will also add an elevator to make the structure wheelchair accessible.

As an investment, the firm expects the project to pay for itself. Later, as the firm grows, it will rent less and use more. But improving the neighborhood is its own reward for Englander.

"The building had some nice features, but over time they got lost," he said. "We're bringing it back and putting that luster back on."

Paul Swider can be reached at pswider@sptimes.com or 892-2271.

[Last modified January 1, 2008, 22:45:53]