Chapter 8 Expanding with a New Model

A company’s location says a great deal about the clients it wants to attract and the kind of employees it wants to hire. If it is super cool and tech-oriented, it will be accessible to staff in hipster hubs like Williamsburg and Hoboken. If it wants more conservative employees, it will head to Midtown or Park Avenue for the easy commute from the Northern suburbs. Still other companies leave the city to establish themselves in the suburbs, where the chief executive will have his pick of prospective staff and no commute. It’s easier all around, less expensive and comes with a more family-friendly lifestyle.

MKDA responded to this urban diaspora with the opening of the firm’s first satellite office in Stamford, Connecticut, in 2006. Julia Lindh, R.A., executive managing director and director of design, who created the office as “a one man shop” 12 years ago, now has a staff of 11, 10 of whom are designers and project managers, and a healthy roster of projects coming on board as more corporate executives tire of the expense and stresses of Manhattan.

Workpoint coworking space,

Stamford. PHOTOGRAPH: Garrett Rowland.

Arbour Lane Capital Management,

Stamford. PHOTOGRAPH: Jarad Kleinberg.

MKDA renovated an existing building at 2187 Atlantic Street, Stamford, updating the base and lobby.

PHOTOGRAPH: Alexander Severin.

MKDA renovated and repositioned 850 Canal Street, Stamford.

“A lot of CEOs live up here and want a place in the Central Business District, close to the train,” says Lindh. “It is a different lifestyle—a more laid back approach.”

She knows that scenario well. After many years working in New York City for firms like TPG Architecture and LCP Associates, she decamped to the suburbs to be closer to her own home in 1998. She worked first for the local TPG office as director of design, did a stint working for Roger Ferris + Partners in Westport, Connecticut, then worked at Esposito Design Associates as principal and director of design, before meeting Michael Kleinberg over coffee to discuss joining MKDA.

“I was definitely interested,” she recalls. “It only took about an hour for us to realize we both felt comfortable.”

What Lindh brought to the table was something MKDA always held precious: contacts and a reputation among the top corporations and brands that had moved to the suburbs over the preceding decades, but had perhaps worked with other design firms. They included Pernod Ricard, Heineken and Cummings & Lockwood, a law firm specializing in trusts and estates.

Contacts, in this case, also meant relationships, which Lindh cultivated to get MKDA’s first Stamford projects. “There were clients who wanted to continue to work with me and were willing to do so to get the company rolling,” she says. In true MKDA style, the office’s first project was a referral from RFR Realty, for Greenwich Associates, a Stamfordbased research firm that provides market intelligence to banks and financial services companies. The firm moved to new, 40,000-square-foot headquarters in Stamford from its first home in Greenwich.

Another relationship, this time with George Comfort & Sons Commercial Real Estate, led MKDA to Guggenheim Partners, a large financial concern. MKDA initially designed a 30,000-square-foot space for Guggenheim at The Centre at Purchase in Harrison, New York, which led to a 250,000-square-foot project at 330 Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The firm has since designed three more projects for Guggenheim in San Francisco, Chicago and Rockville, Maryland.

“They keep us busy,” Lindh says.

The contact with George Comfort & Sons, MKDA Stamford’s landlord at Shippan Landing, eventually led to projects for MKDA’s New York office. Lindh and her team have also done projects in Connecticut and New York for executive recruiter Michael Page International, as well as interiors for the Bank of Ireland, Tradition Energy, Design Within Reach, Workpoint, Eldridge Industries, and Arbour Lane Capital Management. They have also worked with landlords on the repositioning of buildings in Stamford, like 700 and 850 Canal Street, owned by ClearRock Properties, and 2187 Atlantic Street for Black Diamond.

Guggenheim Partners headquarters, New York, above and left.

PHOTOGRAPHS: Garrett Rowland