Projects We’re Looking Forward To

An exterior shot of Urban Zen’s West Village headquarters.

We’re off to a new year and a busy one here at Katz. There are a number of exciting projects we’ll be making progress on this year and we thought it’d be nice to give you the lowdown on a few of our favorite ones:

First off, after almost three years of work, we’re close to completing our 10-story gut renovation of a landmark district pre-war building in Midtown. Our work so far has included converting the original structure from residential apartments to office use.

A look at one of the in-progress office spaces.

This allowed us to add horizontal expansion into light wells on either side of the building and add about 5,000 square feet of usable space. Along the way we’ve also added a new rooftop penthouse to the structure, complete with full window replacement and facade restoration. All of our hard work is just about complete and we can’t wait to show it off.

A view of the building’s facade and brand new windows.

In the meantime, after 18 months of design and documentation, we are about to embark on construction for our renovation of El Teatro, the historic 600 seat theater located inside El Museo del Barrio. El Teatro was originally built in 1922 and is a landmark quality interior noteworthy for its proscenium arch stage, orchestra pit, art-deco details and the remarkable series of 30-foot tall, hand painted murals of children’s literature scenes by noted illustrator, Willy Pogany. We are working to complete construction by the end of the year.

An interior shot of a pre-construction El Teatro and the famous murals adorning the walls.

We are also excited to be working on a new house in Tuxedo Park, New York in association with our good friends at Meyer Davis. The new lakefront home will have five bedrooms, at least a couple of great fireplaces, and fabulous views of We-Wah Lake.

This year we’ll also continue our longstanding partnership with Urban Zen, Donna Karan’s New York City based non-profit foundation. We will continue to provide our technical and code consulting expertise on their West Village headquarters, which includes a 12,000 square foot exhibition and events studio and an adjacent 19th century townhouse.

Finally, we are very pleased to be working with a brand new client, Forest City Ratner, on MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn. Developed in 1992, MetroTech is a 16-acre business and education center. Among its numerous tenants is New York University, the IRS and the New York City Department of Education. It is one of the nation’s largest urban academic-industrial research parks.

We look forward to updating you about our progress on each of these and other new and exciting projects over the coming year. Thank you for staying tuned!