Why Your Next Construction Project Needs a Professional Quarterback

It's true that construction projects tend to go over budget, behind schedule, and drive residents crazy. Matt Resnick, senior director of project management at AKAM, explains the hidden costs that can blow your budget before construction even begins, like attorney fees and special inspections that boards often overlook. Resnick reveals how the right project manager can actually save money through better contractor negotiations and smarter scheduling that reduces expensive delays. Plus, get insider tips on assembling the perfect team when your building faces complex challenges like neighbor access agreements or asbestos issues. Habitat's Carol Ott conducts the interview.

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Transcript

Carol Ott: Welcome to Inside Track, a conversation with New York's leading property management executives. I'm Carol Lott with Habitat Magazine, and my guest today is Matt Resnick, senior director of project management at AKAM. New York City has become a sea of sidewalk sheds, and behind each shed is a story about a building project that is expensive, time consuming, and fingers crossed, smooth going. Matt, fingers crossed, is probably not a good project planning tool. As someone who coordinates and oversees dozens of projects, what is the secret sauce that makes a project successful? 

Matt Resnick: The first step is to build the right team. In order to do so, you must consult with your board and or building and understand what are the goals of a particular project.

From there, we can help determine who the best professionals are, whether it's an architect, engineer, designer, for that given project. Bid that portion out, try and get the best price for that building, aid in the design process. And then finally repeat that same process with contractors to continue building the right team and find the right contractors for a specific design and project.

Carol Ott: I wanna step back and you talk about the right team. You've worked with a project that is very complicated, it's next to a school, where a team really is needed, besides just an architect or engineer. Can you explain to me what's involved and then what was involved in coordinating this project?

Matt Resnick: Sure. This project in particular is on the Upper East side, where our building is taller than the adjacent building, a private nursery school, and then also an apartment building on their other side. For our facade project first thing we need to understand is, do we need access agreements with our neighbors?

In this case, the answer was yes. Additionally we needed to understand via our environmental testing, is there asbestos, and also where our contractor needs to hang their suspended scaffolding rigs in order to perform the work. In going through this exercise, we learned that the nursery school to our east also wants to do work this summer on their roof, of course.

And also our neighbor to the west uses a courtyard that we must protect. And we tested positive for asbestos. So with all of that, we had to reformulate the plan with the team in place to see what work we can do while our neighbors need to perform their trash duties and other duties to their west, and to our east, allowing our neighbor to perform their necessary work, too.

So we've had many meetings on the roof with both our engineering contracting team, along with their counterparts of the nursery school. And from there we've actually formulated a plan that allows us to complete the majority of our most sensitive work this summer, where we have a known leak. It allows them to perform their most critical work in another section of our adjoining property line.

And it allows both of us to complete the work next summer in its entirety. So all of that then had to be memorialized in an access agreement and we had to get the attorneys involved to formalize that process. And part of that, also, we're going to be meeting every two weeks with this neighbor, and updating and exchanging schedules every two weeks to see if we're on track and for both of us to accomplish our goals of the summer.

Carol Ott: And let me just ask you, so I understand there's a board of this building and the board, I presume, by the management company or just by their architecture, engineer, said we have to do facade restoration or repair, probably for Local Law 11. Who puts this team together?

Most boards probably wouldn't understand what you're talking about in terms of a team. So you're a project manager. Is it the board hiring a project manager who then informs them what kind of team is needed? Or how does that work? 

Matt Resnick: That's a great question. In this case, we inherited the team.

This building is a little bit new to AKAM and so the engineer and contractor are in place, thankfully I had a past experience with them and they made good choices. But I would say every project needs a leader. Sometimes it's the property manager, sometimes it's a project manager like myself and my team.

And regardless, it's important as part of that process that you rely on your professionals, including that point person to say, here are the three architects who are best for your job. Here are the five contractors that are best for your job, and to really act as their agent in bringing the project to life in the best possible way for the building.

Carol Ott: Often a board, when they need, say, facade work done, they're gonna turn to an engineer or architect that they've worked in the past if they've been happy. Does that profession act as the project coordinator? It seems like you're suggesting a different kind of person to coordinate a project.

Matt Resnick: So for some of the aspects we're getting into on this project, you truly do need another person. We strongly rely on the engineer to give us good advice about how much work is seen here, what should we expect when we actually get there. But in terms of speaking with the neighbor directly, their counsel, and formulating the business terms for an access agreement, that is typically not done by an architect or a board member. You truly want it to be an agent of yours, whether it's a property manager or project manager. 

Carol Ott: You also are working with another building, I think, on the West Side, that also has an access agreement issue. Tell me how that's going.

Matt Resnick: So that building has two towers and lots of amenity spaces in between them. There are lawns, there's playgrounds, there's a basketball court and a pickleball court. So as part of that project, my team came in, reviewed the project file, spoke with the contractor and engineer, and we tried to reshuffle the project so that those amenity spaces can be open with the warmer weather that we're experiencing now.

So as part of that process, we modeled out and we had great cooperation from the contractor and engineer, looking at various options to keeping those amenity spaces open for as long as possible during this time of year. We actually required the contractor and they agreed to it at no cost to the building to put some extra crews on in March and April in certain locations.

That actually allowed us to get a little bit ahead of schedule and thus allowed these, really, the lawn in particular, to be open for pretty much the duration of the summer. 

Carol Ott: So you manage projects. How does that work in terms of cost? So if a board had some sort of a complicated project and wanted to hire a project manager, how does that work?

Matt Resnick: Sure. So the first thing we do at no charge is really understand the project. Are they partway through? Are they building a team? Is there an engineer and or contractor in place? We usually put in a couple hours, up to five hours typically for free, just making sure we understand the project.

 We try and look for opportunities and weaknesses to see how our team can genuinely help. From there, we typically charge either at hourly rates or flat fees so that the client either has cost certainty or that they get what they pay for in, in terms of our involvement. 

Carol Ott: And what types of projects would you advise a board to consider bringing in a project manager?

Matt Resnick: Typically a project manager's gonna provide value for any type of project. We can, or they can typically negotiate a little bit better, as they may have a better handle on what market pricing is. They might be able to help you phase work better so that the schedule is done sooner., the construction is done sooner, thus saving you on associated soft costs. And they just take a more mindful approach to everything. They have the time to communicate better, where your property manager might be doing various different things. A project manager's only goal is your project. And with that mindset and based on their experience, you tend to do save money and time.

Carol Ott: Is there a dollar figure at all when a board should consider bringing in a project manager?

Matt Resnick: Not necessarily. We've helped on all types of project costs, some below a hundred thousand dollars and others, 7 million and more. It really depends on the project. I would say anything that requires multiple trades and coordination, you're gonna want a project manager for. If you want an enhanced level of service for your residents in regards to communications, you'd probably want a project manager and their team dedicated to more precise communications, maybe more informal, such as using text tools, email blast, and perhaps even targeted messaging. And it truly depends on the project. Some projects are inexpensive but require specialties and some are expensive and go well, but it can't hurt to at least speak to a project manager.

It's always good to get free advice. We do the same thing when we speak to architects, engineers, and contractors. And usually you learn at least one valuable item to enhance your project. 

Carol Ott: Back maybe a decade ago I don't think there really were project managers. Maybe projects were simpler, maybe the money wasn't so large.

 AKAM is a management company, but clearly has a large project management team, or manages a lot of projects. Why do you think project managers have come into existence at this point? 

Matt Resnick: Sure. So for facade projects, things have gotten complicated. Local Law 11 has been enhanced every year. There's more probing, there's more inspections now. People are working from home now, post COVID. Before COVID, it used to be our, one of our easier memos to send that, we'll be making noise from nine to five; you probably don't want to be home. Now, we're sending very targeted emails so that families can make the decisions that are best for themselves, such as, we're working on the A line for the next six weeks.

Afterwards we'll move to the C line, followed by the D line so that families can pre-plan their ,schedules taking into consideration noise and other issues. 

And then we see the same thing with hallway projects. Hallway projects are invasive once we need to paint apartment doors. So we need to send very precise communications. We need to get ahead of it. People need to be able to make arrangements for their pets and children when that work takes place. So there's been a lot of, lot more coordination post COVID with more people being home. 

Carol Ott: Great. And lemme just ask finally, what would your takeaway be for board directors when considering hiring a project manager?

Matt Resnick: First, I would say it can't hurt to have a conversation. You're going to learn something from them. Ask them, why should we hire you? What value are you going to add? Perhaps it's financial. Perhaps it's having the right architect or designer. I can't stress enough how important that is, to really match the right designer in terms of their expertise and their temperament and personality to a board.

It's very important that everyone have confidence in their professionals and like working together. Oftentimes our projects are a year plus and we meet weekly. There's a lot of involvement. There's going to be some difficulties and just having the right person and right team is extremely important.

And then., I would also recommend using project managers to help create a budget. The budget isn't obviously just construction costs, but there are soft costs that are obvious, such as architect engineering and project management fees and some that aren't so obvious, such as your attorney fees for drafting contracts, and other DOB filing fees.

Special inspections. And if you miss one of those line items, you can already be over budget before you even start. 

Carol Ott: All right. Thank you very much, Matt Resnick. 

Matt Resnick: Thank you.