How Bundling NYC Building Inspections Could Save Co-ops Nearly $1M

With nearly 40% of a typical $2 million facade project going to "soft costs" like scaffolding and sidewalk sheds, smart planning of these inspections can lead to massive savings. In this episode, Gene Ferrara, president of JMA Consultants, offers an example of how one upper West Side building could save almost $900,000 by combining multiple inspections into one project. As NYC buildings face the end of the ninth facade inspection cycle and the beginning of the tenth in 2025, Ferrara shares practical strategies for boards to navigate these overlapping regulations while keeping costs down. Habitat’s Emily Myers conducts the interview.

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Transcript

Emily Myers: Welcome to Problem Solved, a conversation about challenges facing New York Co-op and condo board directors. I'm Emily Myers with Habitat Magazine and I'm joined by Gene Ferrara, president of the consulting and engineering firm, JMA Consultants. 

New York City's ninth facade inspection cycle is ending, the 10th cycle begins next year, and this year also sees new parapet inspections.

So being strategic about these overlapping regulations is crucial if your building is going to file those building inspections on time and save money. Gene, you've been working with a co-op on the Upper West Side where leftover FISP conditions need attention. Can you explain what's happened? 

Gene Ferrara: What happens is that there was a prior project done than mine, and they didn't have the same outlook, or maybe it was presented, maybe it wasn't. But the reality here is we try to push our clients. We don't get paid on a percentage basis of the job, but it behooves us to tell them that spending more money sometimes will actually cost less money in the long run. And what happened here is that we had the ninth cycle come up.

We filed them as SWARMP, but there was a certain amount of time to complete work and now they're gonna do that work and they're gonna satisfy three things at one time. 

Emily Myers: What you're saying then is that if you file towards the end of one cycle, this building has also been able to file for the following cycle and save money?

Is that what has happened at this building on the Upper West side? 

Gene Ferrara: So what happens is that we had timed the SWARMP conditions to be completed towards the end of the ninth cycle, and this is an a cycle, nine a cycle building, and the 10th cycle, as you mentioned, will open up next year in February of 2025.

Our project will complete this year. And all those inspections that we do off the scaffolds will then count to the tenth cycle because it's within one year of that filing. Now that's gonna solve taking SWARMP to safe for the ninth cycle, and it's gonna make the building safe for the 10th cycle. This particular building is very challenging with rigging, many setbacks, many public right-of-ways and so forth.

So we designed the scaffold drops for this project. Even if we didn't have to do one or two of them, we designed them into the project just to make sure that we have the coverage. 'Cause you can't reach this with a boom truck and it's very expensive to reach it any other way. During this period of time the DOB came up with another law, actually I should say City Council, which is now the Parapet Law Inspections.

So we're gonna do three things. Solve the SWARMP conditions. Be able to file safe for the tentH cycle and make the parapet inspection requirement addressed for both 2024 and 2025. 

Emily Myers: Can you just explain the SWARMP conditions? 

Gene Ferrara: Right. SWARMP conditions are conditions in which we say that are not gonna last for more than five years; they could be two years, they could be three years. We normally, in our firm, anything less than 18 months or 24 months is really not something that would be considered SWARMP. And the Building Department looks at it the same way. That's why they wanna make sure these conditions can be addressed sooner than that.

So what we did in this particular building, we fixed what we could. The building have 36 months worth of condition resolution. And now we're gonna take care of those problems and then the building would be filed as safe. Now, the one thing you should know is we pushed the DOB, and I have to say, the guys at the FISP division up there were very accommodating. They are all very involved up there.

And they're open to consultants and we work with another consulting firm, well known in the industry as well. And we asked them specific questions and they gave us very good answers to the extent that made it very clear. It took some time 'cause everybody's busy. But we were able to get for our clients and the rest of the clients in the industry, the building department to accept a FISP filing as that year's inspection. So think about that. That's saving some of these buildings four or $5,000 for that year than when you have to do that filing because the engineer's there already, he's looking at things. He knows whether the parapets are safe or not, if there's any issue. And that resolves that problem.

But what happens is that you have a lot of engineering firms and management companies and buildings, they all think that you go from one engineer to the next cycle, then a new engineer, then a this, and then that. Make your selection and you know what they say when you get married, pick your partner, because you're married. And the longer you stay married and you're happily married, the more money you will save in that building because that engineer will be able to make it so that you can take advantage of all these things. And I think the next subject we need to discuss is how important this is financially. 

Emily Myers: So the problem here was complicated scaffolding and a collection of building inspections that needed to be met.

City inspections often do run in cycles. So how easy is it for boards then to bundle these jobs, whether it's facades, parapets, gas lines, we know about garages-- to reduce the cost of scaffolding and access, which is presumably increasing. 

Gene Ferrara: The easiest way is, like I said, you hire a competent engineer.

When you hire a competent engineer that's not only an engineering consultant, but he's also a project consultant, he's able to then bundle these things and show the boards, Hey, look, if you do this, and this, maybe a little bit above your budget or maybe in your budget. Then you don't have to do a project next five to 10 years.

We're on almost 400 buildings. And these are not little buildings. They're very complicated buildings, with complicated aspects. And we're able to manage them because we know where we left off. In most of our buildings, I would say 90%, our clients are doing projects every 10 years, eight to 10, let's say.

Okay. And that involves scaffolding, facade work and so forth. So on this building we were talking about before, and I'll even mention another one. We have a $2 million job coming up now and there's $750,000 of soft costs in that 2 million. Think about that. 

Emily Myers: Those soft costs are scaffolding and access and sidewalk sheds.

Gene Ferrara: Us, legal fees, special inspectors, asbestos testing. You go on and on. And the reality here is that 750,000 out of the 2 million is really not fixing one brick on that building. It's to get to that brick. It's to get to that point that you can do that restoration. So if you took 750 out of every five years and put it towards the actual work to be done on the building, think about that.

That's a lot of money towards the building. 

Emily Myers: So can you calculate then, for the building on the Upper West Side, what the savings are of bundling this work? 

Gene Ferrara: We're estimating somewhere around $900,000, over that period of time, because it's not only soft costs, it becomes other things that tend into that. Access agreements, right?

For the neighbors. That's become a big problem. That's a whole 'nother story for another day. 

Emily Myers: So it makes sense to be strategic about doing exterior work, but I'm getting the sense that it's not always easy for boards to approach the work in this way.

Why is that then? 

Gene Ferrara: Because their engineer or consultant on the last cycle of things did not leave them in the right spot. Or he did tell 'em what to do and they didn't select it. Most of the times we're finding that if you really spend some time with boards and you really explain this to ,them most of them are business people.

They get it. But one thing I would say that's different this time than not. Boy, the city has really put a lot of things on their backs and I really feel bad for them. If they say they just can't do it, 'cause they're stretched to the limit, I understand it. But I tell them then start budgeting in the future for the next grouping of work.

When you look at all the things, parapet law, FISP, Local Law 97, Local Law 1 26, the garage inspections. They're trying to push us all out. It's good to do good things. I understand that, but enough is enough at this point in time. We really need to take a little break and let the people catch up.

Emily Myers: So you mentioned that access agreements are challenging and obviously there is complicated scaffolding at this building on the Upper West Side. Are there any other specific challenges for this building in doing the work? 

Gene Ferrara: It's windy as hell. I remember the first day they asked me to go out to the building.

I went up to the rooftop and I came out the door. I lost my hat. I almost lost my clipboard. And they wanna know how soon can we get everything done? I go, this building is gonna take twice as much time to do anything. 'Cause you're gonna have days, you just can't get up there. It's one of the tallest buildings on the Upper West Side that kind of sit out amongst themselves and it's right off of Central Park West.

And you know what, the good news is they ended up selecting a contractor who did a project there years ago, they were very satisfied with, and that contractor knows how to rig the building. I know them well. That's a good idea. If you have a good dealing with a contractor, things work out well on a prior project and he can be your low or almost low bidder, boy, hire him again because he knows that building and that's the key.

You don't want somebody learning from scratch on these types of buildings. 

Emily Myers: Okay. And what else can other boards take away from this example? 

Gene Ferrara: When you're interviewing an engineering consultant or when you're interviewing a contractor ask him as many questions as you want, but focus on what is it that I have to do now?

What is it that I should do so that I don't have to do this again anytime soon? And how can I save money on building maintenance projects over the long term? 

Emily Myers: And you mentioned that the savings are 900,000. What's the actual cost of the work at this building? 

Gene Ferrara: The cost of the overall project's 2 million.

But like I said, it's $1,250,000 worth of physical ripping out bricks, putting new bricks in and pointing and things like that. The rest of it is just soft cost. 

Emily Myers: Gene, thanks so much. Gene Ferrara, president of JMA Consultants. 

Gene Ferrara: Thank you.