It’s a wait-and-see attitude even with a reopening

Many in real estate management not ready to go all in

On Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that come May 19, restaurants, stores, museums, offices, health clubs and barbershops in New York City will be permitted to operate at full capacity for the first time since restrictions were put in place more than a year ago to stem the spread of COVID -19.

It’s great news, and many want to celebrate. That desire explains the load of calls already fielded by the property manager at the Dime, a rental building in Brooklyn, from tenants eager to book the Havemeyer Lounge on the building ’s 22nd floor for dance parties.

But many in the real estate management business don’t seem to be tossing all their concerns away and joining the festivities just yet.

“Most of our buildings have amenity spaces, and if they’re closed now they’ll open at limited capacity,” said Michael Rogoff, president of the property management firm AKAM, which oversees 270 rentals, condos and co-ops. “But I can’t imagine any residential building rushing to loosen COVID rules and opening up 100 percent.

“When you’re dealing with people’s homes and there’s no economic advantage to relaxing protocols, I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Rogoff added. “It’s about people and their families feeling safe.”

John Janangelo, executive managing director of Douglas Elliman Property Management, put it even more strongly.

“Just because someone says the city is reopening doesn’t mean buildings are going to go along with it,” he said. “I haven’t been getting frantic calls from clients saying they really need to open up their buildings.”

“Boards are not going to react quickly to this,” Janangelo, whose firm advises some 400 residential properties in New York City, added. “They’re going to be thinking things like ‘What happens if we decide to open the gym fully and someone gets sick?’ I can tell you that in my building, no one wants to change anything yet.”

Even in co-ops and condos whose board members agree that it’s high time for a little change — to see the inside of the gym or lounge or game room once again — there’s a lot to consider.

“We have to decide what’s best for each property,” said Burton Wallack, president of Wallack Management.

“There are different-size elevators and different-size amenity spaces. If the gym is small, boards may decide that they still want to limit it to one person at a time or one family.”

The size of the staff in the 80 buildings that his company manages is also a factor, Wallack said, “because we’ll have to keep up with the cleaning of fitness rooms and community rooms.”

For many landlords and management companies, the pressing questions used to be “How do we get residents to keep their masks on in the lobby?” and “How frequently do we need to sanitize the doorknobs?” These days, they’re more likely to ask, “How do we get the staff vaccinated?” and “Can we force the staff to get vaccinated?”

Wallack Management has sent notes to doormen and porters asking them to get the shots. Janangelo has tapped some doctors on co-op boards to address questions and concerns of employees in their buildings.

“We’ve made a big push to educate our building staffs about the vaccine and to make sure they’re being provided with research from the CDC and the Department of Health because there’s a lot of misinformation out there,” said Robbie Janowitz, senior vice president of Orsid New York, a residential property management firm.

“We’re not strong-arming them,” he added, “but we want them to make decisions based on facts.”

Orsid has had group meetings and one-on-one conversations to offer support to building employees, who, for whatever reason, are skittish about rolling up their sleeves. Further, thanks to a family connection, Janowitz has been able to get logistical support from B’nai Jeshurun, a synagogue in Manhattan.

“Someone here started a program to arrange vaccines for vulnerable members of our congregation and within the wider community,” said Leah Silver, a B’nai Jeshurun member who is also Janowitz’s cousin by marriage. The result: a dedicated text line to book vaccine appointments for staff members of Orsid buildings.

At 50 West, a condo in the Manhattan financial district, the staff has been sterilizing the pens that visitors use to sign in,

“and we may have them keep doing that,” said Seth Coston, director of residential asset management and operations for Time Equities, which developed and manages 50 West.

The Upper East Side co-op where Sharon Fahy is the president of the co-op board plans to continue temperature checks “until we’re in a safer spot,” said Fahy, an associate broker at the real estate firm Brown Harris Stevens. The building will also continue a requirement that shareholders’ housekeepers fill out COVID -19 employee selfcertification forms when they first return to work.

Clorox, Zep and Lysol will also still be in heavy rotation. Some buildings are doubling down. The superintendent of one Upper East Side co-op said the building staff was disinfecting more often now than at the beginning of the pandemic because although only 30 percent of the residents were in the building last year, many who left for second homes have returned.