New York City Architecture Firm Sees Opportunity in Albany Region

New York City Architecture Firm Sees Opportunity in Albany Region Mar 4, 2021, 6:49am EST

Spacesmith, a New York City architectural firm with an office in Hudson, is making a bigger push into the Albany region.

Jane Smith, the firm's founder, sees opportunities for a variety of projects, including designing adaptive reuses of older buildings.

Jane Smith is founder of Spacesmith, a New York City

"A big part of the pursuit now is to not only architectural firm with an office in Hudson Photo credit: Tanya Braganti work for the larger institutions — whether government or educational sectors or corporate that are in the area — but also to work directly with the various communities and do projects like some of the ones we’re doing right now," Smith said.

One example is a building next to historic Washington Park in downtown Troy. Last fall, it was converted from two apartments into a single-family home.

Another is in Albany, at the former Freihofer bakery at 222 Spruce St. The property owners are interested in converting the buildings into a mixed-use farmers market. Those plans are being reworked because of some recent demolition at the site.

"The idea of creating something with a positive influence is still very much there," Smith said.

Spacesmith has annual billings of $6 million to $7 million, with 30 employees in New York City and six in Hudson. The firm has a partnership with the much larger Davis Brody Bond, whose portfolio includes the 9/11 Memorial Museum in lower Manhattan.

There's a lot of depth and opportunity to work on projects from large to small," Smith said.

Spacesmith started working in the Albany area about a decade ago as part of the "restacking" initiative in which state government sought ways to save money on leasing offices and warehouses from the private sector.

"I started spending a lot of time in Albany and started to understand more about the history, getting to know the restaurants and the neighborhoods," Smith said. "I started having a sense of Albany as a community and a place and its location and history and importance, not only as the capital.

She bought a house in Hudson in 2005 as a weekend retreat, and was invited to serve on the city's historic preservation commission. That led to doing architectural projects in Hudson and learning about opportunities closer in Albany, Schenectady and Troy.

Spacesmith opened a Hudson office three years ago. Among the projects in the Hudson Valley are the adaptive reuse of Columbia Lodge as an art gallery/event space, the Talbott + Arding cheese shop, and Upriver Studios, a film/TV studio in a former 150,000-square-foot industrial building in Saugerties.

Hudson is a 45-minute drive from clients in the immediate Capital Region so Smith doesn't see a need to open another office locally.

She knows there's a strong group of designers in the area through her involvement with the board of the American Institute of Architects, a trade group.

"Where there’s other good architects and professionals and engineers and contractors, then there’s work and opportunities," she said.

By Michael DeMasi

Reporter

Albany Business Review