Chapter 10 The Future Will Be Fluid

Renovation of 82 NE 40th Street, a retail building in Miami’s Design District.

PHOTOGRAPH: Jarad Kleinberg. same way Michael Kleinberg clicked almost instantly with Julia Lindh in Stamford. MKDA Miami opened in 2013 with Hertzler at the helm as executive managing director and director of design.

Hertzler is an interior designer with a skill set that dovetailed perfectly with MKDA’s long history in corporate interiors, and that was the vein she intended to mine. In a complete reversal, however, MKDA Miami opened in a market with a great need for design of all kinds. It was as though the movers and shakers in the development world were waiting for MKDA to arrive. She knew she had to do a one-eighty to cater to players in the local market whose needs were elsewhere.

“We knew we had to diversify,” she says. “We had to create a brand that would not only focus on the corporate sector that MKDA was known for, but also expand to the various sectors that Miami is known for: retail, hospitality and ground-up, mixed-use projects.”

MKDA Miami was catapulted onto a trajectory no one anticipated. Since 2013, when Jeffrey and Michael opened the office, Hertzler has launched the firm’s first architecture studio and first hospitality studio, and ventured into mixed-use, high-rise, ground-up and retail projects. She has also expanded her sphere beyond Miami to include Fort Lauderdale, Coral Cables, Hialeah and the Caribbean, where MKDA Miami is refurbishing and repositioning a dated, 120,000-square-foot hotel

Creative Artists Agency, Miami.

PHOTOGRAPH: Rolando Diaz.

in Montego Bay, Jamaica, adding floors, a new pool, spa and roof deck.

Hertzler envisions more hotels for MKDA Miami, which is currently designing what will be Wynwood’s first hotel, construction of which is underway. The nature of that business is somewhat complex, according to the designer, who runs the firm with her brother, Brett Hertzler, AIA. He directs the architecture studio.

“Designing hotels requires a comprehensive knowledge of the operational side of running a hotel,” Amanda Hertzler explains. “If it doesn’t function, even the most beautiful hotel will fail. We understand that, which is why we have proven ourselves to be a valued asset to hotel developers.”

Indeed, MKDA is also a valued asset to the brokerage community in all its markets. Working with companies like CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, JLL, NKF, and Colliers, the firm has assisted countless New York clients with Miami projects and investments. According to Michael, “much of our work comes from long-standing relationships with firms that have introduced us to their associated partners in South Florida.”

Retail in South Miami is emerging as a particularly strong category. Current projects include the adaptive reuse of a single-story, 6,000-square-foot building in the Design District for the Gindi family, owners of Century 21 department stores, and a small, ground-up retail project for Red Sky Capital, a Brooklyn developer best known for work in Williamsburg and Downtown Brooklyn.

MKDA is also renovating 50,000 square feet of retail in Wynwood Park, Miami, surrounded by 22,000 square feet of green space in the heart of the happenin’ arts district best known for adaptive reuse of concrete block warehouses, hip restaurants, art galleries, one-of-a-kind retail, and wildly colorful murals. Most of the credit for the carefully curated vision of what is now Wynwood goes to Tony Goldman, the late principal of Goldman Properties. His vision was behind the metamorphosis of Manhattan’s Cast Iron District into SoHo, once the center of the downtown art scene that is now a high-end retail mecca. Goldman began investing in Wynwood about a decade ago with a very different building stock to work with.

“SoHo had beautiful architecture, so it was easy to accentuate what already existed,” Hertzler says. “Buildings here were just concrete boxes with small windows, so Goldman invited graffiti artists to paint the buildings. Now, it’s known for its wall murals.”

It’s also where the MKDA Miami office is located, and that is no accident. Hertzler chose the area for the thriving creative scene and how it represents the vision she and the Kleinbergs have for the future of the Miami office.

“There’s a definite parallel,” the designer says. “We could have been on Brickell Avenue or Downtown, but

we wanted to be in a highly diverse, creative area more in line with where I thought our future would be.”

It looks like a good call on Hertzler’s part, if the extraordinary rate of growth in the newest MKDA office is any measure. Now, with a staff of about 15, 2018 revenues will be roughly 30% over 2017. The office has completed more than two million square feet of interiors for clients that include Creative Artists Agency, Colliers, VUMI Group, O’Connor Capital, Liberty Power, Haber Slade, Brickell City Tower, 100 Biscayne, and Ofizzina, a 16-story, ground-up office condo in Coral Gables. Last year, the South Florida Business Journal designated MKDA one of the city’s Best Places to Work.

According to Hertzler, it was a Coral Gables interiors project that brought the firm’s work to the fore: Douglas Entrance and La Puerta Del Sol are office buildings for which MKDA designed the lobbies and common areas. It was like the Lufthansa project was for Milo some 50 years ago.

“It legitimized us in Miami,” Hertzler says. “Prospective clients want to know you know how Miami works. The fact that we were able to land a building like this affirmed us as a firm that could move ahead in other areas.”

Like the Kleinberg principals, Hertzler is viewed as an accomplished design professional, grounded in the real estate business. She advises on investment and development opportunities, aids in marketing the property, then does the design and build-out—as MKDA has done for decades. Clients include East End Capital, Brickman, Banyan Street Capital, the Safra Family and Colliers, in addition to the Gindi Family, Goldman Properties and Red Sky.

As more New York developers move to Miami, like Tony Goldman did a decade ago, the MKDA legacy will prove invaluable.

“Miami is a young city with a lot of development going on—and not just in Miami itself, but areas like Broward County and Doral in Miami-Dade County,” Hertzler says. “Hospitality has always been strong, but there’s a lot of development yet to be seen in the retail and office sectors—ground-up architecture that needs to happen, and I see it as 40%-50% of our work here.”

“It makes sense for MKDA to be part of that,” she says.

The Douglas Entrance, the project that established MKDA in Miami.

PHOTOGRAPH: Scott Harris.

Banyan Street Capital, above and

left. PHOTOGRAPHS: Jarad Kleinberg.

The Kleinberg family, left to right: Matthew, Joshua, Stacey, Jarad, Marissa, Jeffrey, Michael and Milo.

Milo remains very much a presence in his sunny corner of the New York headquarters. He comes into the office four days a week, keeps up with what everyone is working on and consults when asked. He surveys his surroundings with just a hint of smug satisfaction at what his once small enterprise has become and the family’s growing role in it.

From here, further expansion for MKDA will be organic. There are plans to open other offices, and it will do so when the right partners are found, as happened so successfully in Stamford and Miami. Washington, D.C., will likely be the next satellite to open; the firm works with a number of New York landlords with assets in and around the capital, and will open an office when the best person comes along to lead it.

“Our two satellite offices are home grown, our key players in the company have been home grown, and the firm will use that formula for future studios,” says Michael. “Further expansion will be at a thoughtful and measured pace, in a market or markets that make sense, where we would flourish as a firm.”

Short term, a third generation of Kleinbergs is joining MKDA with Jeffrey’s three children already on board. The eldest, Jarad Kleinberg, has taken over from his father as director of operations and technology, and is also staff photographer/videographer. Jarad’s wife, Stacey Kleinberg, is a senior designer. His brother, Matthew Kleinberg, is involved with business development in the Miami office, while their sister, Marissa Goldschmidt, who is also involved with business development, coordinates FF&E vendors, directs the resource library and works with designers. Michael’s son, Joshua Kleinberg, is studying architecture at the University of Miami and will join the firm as an architect when he graduates. Michael also has two daughters: Alyssa Berger, a speech and language therapist, and Arielle Kleinberg, a senior at Brandeis University.

Michael resists the notion of a rigid master plan for the firm, which has flourished for 60 years without one. Nor will he prognosticate.

“You can’t really predict what will work in the future,” he observes. “But we will continue to focus on what has worked for decades—measured growth while creating dynamic environments in which people can thrive.”

He adds, “we’re keeping it fluid.”

New York headquarters of Taboola internet marketing

Taboola services. PHOTOGRAPH: Jarad Kleinberg.

Left, Lobby, 114 West 41st Street.

PHOTOGRAPH: Jarad Kleinberg. Below, Philadelphia 76ers Innovation

Lab. PHOTOGRAPH: Jasper Sanidad.

Below, hedge fund office, New York.

PHOTOGRAPH: Garrett Rowland. Right, asset management firm, New

York. PHOTOGRAPH: Garrett Rowland.

“He’s an extremely cultured man and that’s what I liked about him when we first met. I always said there are few Milo Kleinbergs in the world with the smarts, the drive and the culture he has. It’s what goes into being one of a kind.“ —Daniel DeSiena