Carol Ott: Welcome to Problem Solved, a conversation about challenges facing New York's Co-op and condo board directors. I'm Carol Ott of Habitat Magazine, and with me today is Mike Lenton, president of CitiQuiet Windows. 

Noise. It's a fact of life in New York City, but in some parts of the city it's excruciating.

With the city considering how to make it easier to convert commercial buildings into residential ones, noise will be a major issue to be tackled. Mike, I wonder if you can share with us what is going on with these conversions? My guess is that commercial districts are noisier than residential ones during the daytime, and with many buyers working from home this is now an issue.

Michael Lentin: Sure. Thank you so much for having me, Carol.

I founded CitiQuiet 32 years ago based on the premise of a child who couldn't sleep on the Upper East Side, a newborn, and from garbage truck noise and traffic noise and putting in interior soundproof windows to allow some silence in that room, hence the baby sleeping and the parents sleeping. And 32 years later, we've certainly become the brand of interior soundproof window and solution for New York City. It's been interesting through the decades the direction that business comes from, whether it be street traffic, whether it be bars and restaurants, whether it be helicopters and up and down the rivers, people living on the 40 50th floor hearing helicopters.

It's just so interesting. The city's constantly evolving.  These office buildings were built to a certain specification for people who were going to work in them, where the level of noise coming from the outside to the inside while people were working wasn't that important.

But when you convert that building to something where people are now going to live, that level of noise becomes important. So we think with these conversions we're going to see more and more demand for the CitiQuiet product. 

Carol Ott: You’ve been working with a condominium that converted from office space to residential space. Can you tell us what is happening there?

Michael Lentin: Sure.  It's is an old high-rise, just squareish, rectangular shaped building with lots of windows. Like most of the office buildings that we saw built before the curtain wall era of buildings going up, where you just see these glass skyscrapers. These still had what's called punched openings, where it's a brick building for the most part, and it looks like you just punched a hole in it and you put a window in there. 

As you can imagine, there's a lot of pedestrian traffic. There's a lot of vehicular traffic. Its street narrows down because now with the bike lanes and double park, there's lots of horns. It's a touristy area. There's just a lot going on down there. Certainly there's some people that the noise doesn't matter to them. But in some cases they weren't able to sell the condo, so they contacted us and said, do you have a solution? We've heard about CitiQuiet. What can you do? 

Carol Ott: And so they've either contracted with you or buyers who are interested in the units that are sensitive to noise are using the windows. 

Michael Lentin: Right. So in that property in particular the developer is purchasing the windows, having us install them once they're in contract with a buyer. And we install them prior to the closing, and that enables the developer to sell the unit. 

Carol Ott: You bring up something which is interesting about the developer.

I know that you've gotten involved in other projects where a developer stepped in proactively to deal with the noise issue. Can you share with us what happened at the Museum of Natural History when they were building their new structure? 

Michael Lentin: That's an interesting one. The Museum of Natural History a few years ago was looking to build another building on their property. And the folks on the Upper West Side on Columbus and 79th to 81st street that were facing that, which had trees and grass and public space, were up in arms against it. And for years fought the museum, and it was in court constantly.

It was in the New York Times. It almost became like this recurring story in the paper every week to see what was going on. And finally, the museum, to pacify those that lived facing the property, said, Hey, how about we install CitiQuiet soundproof windows for you as a gift, for anybody who wants them.

And then you won't hear the construction. You won't be bothered by it. And in addition, they had planted some additional trees and put in some additional apartments, benches that may not have been on the drawings beforehand. In the end, the museum was going to win, but they were trying to be good neighbors and they spent over a million dollars with us.

And the project has ended, or the project was completed a few years ago. I don't believe anybody has removed the windows which the museum was prepared to pay us to remove. They all kept them. 

Carol Ott: I'm just curious: for co-op or condo boards, who represent buildings and where next door to them, somebody is opening up the ground, is gonna do some construction.

I'm curious if, in your experience, if any boards have said, you know what? We're gonna use this as a negotiating strategy. We're gonna be bothered by your construction. We're gonna go to you, Mr. Developer, and you're gonna help make it right. Certainly by helping to cut down the noise. And this is what, sort of the Natural History agenda, but in reverse. 

Michael Lentin: Yeah, that's a great point. We don't see a lot of that. I think there are certain laws in place in New York City that when you're building, you have to be friendly to your neighbors and do certain things, right? And friendly is a loose term because lawyers get involved and everybody is suing each other and spending all kinds of money to get to that friendly point. But windows, the noise, has never become an issue provided they are building within the hours that they're allowed to build: Monday through Friday, not holidays, not weekends. 

Carol Ott: But I'm wondering since people, we've gone remote now, those hours certainly reflected when people were not in their apartments.

It's a different world. 

Michael Lentin: It is. And that, and there has been a shift in who is purchasing the windows from us, where we used to see a lot of people purchasing windows because they couldn't sleep at night. Now we're seeing a lot of people purchase windows 'cause they can't work out of their apartment during the day.

It's been a very interesting shift. 

Carol Ott: I'm curious. I understand CitiQuiet windows were to keep things quiet. Co-op and condo buildings, as all buildings now, are dealing with Local Law 97 in New York, which means that buildings need to reduce their carbon emissions. One of the ways one does that is to tighten up your building envelope, and one of the ways you do that is to install new windows.

Most co-ops that were converted in the late seventies or early eighties had new windows put in. That's 40 years ago. That's a very expensive, a very intrusive proposition, and I'm wondering if putting in a CitiQuiet window, or an interior window, would do the same kind of job as replacing a window, if that's an alternative.

Michael Lentin: Certainly is. We never — I designed this product 30 years ago and have continued to make some advancements to it through the years. Never considering thermal insulation. We knew it stopped draft. We knew it stopped soot and dirt from coming into the space. But in New York City, in apartments, people really don't think about what it costs to heat and cool because it's in the building maintenance fees and it just doesn't matter.

It's not like living in the suburbs where you think about the oil and gas costs. A couple of years ago Con Edison had contacted us and asked us for testing regarding thermal insulation with the CitiQuiet window. I was speaking to them. I didn't know why they cared, but they were aware of the product.

They saw an opportunity with Local Law 97 to utilize an interior window, just like you said, Carol, where instead of changing a window … For whatever reason, many people can't afford to, or maybe there's Landmarks or many reasons why people may not. They saw an opportunity to further insulate buildings at a fraction of the cost and fraction of the time with less disruption, without any landmark issues, and asked us to test our window.

We did, we provided them the information. They certified the CitiQuiet interior window, and they onboarded us. I think we were the first window contractor in New York City to be eligible to provide a product like this for Local Law 97. 

Carol Ott: And by onboarding, are they providing incentives?

Michael Lentin: Yes. So the same incentives that exist across the board when it comes to tightening the building, whether it be a roof, a facade, a new window or replacement window mechanicals, things of that nature, are the same incentives that would apply to the Citiquiet entry window. It's all based upon the percentage of energy saved.

So whatever the starting point is, and how far we can move off that starting point to a result — it's that delta that's then calculated by ConEd and the incentive money provided to the owner. 

Carol Ott: That's very good to know, particularly for boards in less affluent buildings, or buildings that don't wanna take on a window replacement project.

This is certainly something to consider. I'm just curious, you've been in the window business for decades. What is, from your experience, what is your takeaway for a board when they're thinking about windows, in particular, if they were to think about this kind of window? 

Michael Lentin: I think boards are typically interested first and foremost in cost.

What is the project going to cost? They know they have a need. They know the windows are not operating correctly or are dangerous, or are leaking water and air and costing the building money. So it's more about what will it cost to fix that problem. After that, how long will it take and what is the disruption and what's the return on the investment?

It's really the same questions over and over again from the boards. Think, the 1980s was, before I got into the business, was when everybody was changing to replacement windows, thermal pane windows had just come out, thermally broken frames had just come out and everybody was putting replacement windows in. A window life back then was 25, 30 years. People still have windows from the eighties; they're 40 years old. They know they have issues. It's just a question of how are they going to address 'em and when are they going to address 'em. And I think some people, the timing is perfect for 'em.

'Cause if you can get Con Edison or the energy provider to chip in for your window projects that you had to do anyway, it's really a win-win. 

Carol Ott: All right. Thank you very much. I much appreciate your time. 

Michael Lentin: Likewise, Carol. I really enjoyed it. Look forward to talking to you again.