2 Fifth Ave. Co-Op Board Member Highlights Key Initiatives for the Future

A native New Yorker, Steven Grande is a graduate of New York University’s Center for Communications/Graphic Arts Management and Technology and also attended Pace University’s Lubin School of Business. The owner of Grande + Associates. Inc., a private consulting firm that provides management guidance for publishing and media operations, he spoke with Habitat about how his experience in finance and management are all part of the toolkit he uses as a board member at 2 Fifth Ave., a 343-unit co-op in Greenwich Village.

Manhattan bound. After raising our kids in Brooklyn Heights and Nassau County, my wife Phyllis and I began our search for a home in New York City. Greenwich Village was our preferred location. Our goal was to feel part of a cooperative community that wasn’t too stuffy, a bit eclectic and with modest amenities. Equally important, we wanted a pet-friendly building with close proximity to a dog park for our beloved rescue dogs. Phyllis and I have been shareholders since 2013.

Our building has the largest garden on lower Fifth Ave., and it was really in poor shape following a major facade renovation. Around 2015, I took an early retirement and reached out to the board president to say I’d be happy to toy around with the garden and see if I can bring it back. It turned into a relatively major project, and consequently I worked closely with the board president, who asked me to join the board.

Ready to serve. My early exposure to real estate management came from my grandfather, an Italian immigrant who bought a six-family, rent-stabilized apartment building in Gravesend, Brooklyn. I would help him read and manage documents, handle bill payments, and ensure compliance with city regulations. This experience sparked my interest in real estate management. I’ve served on other boards, including at my first condo in Boerum Hill, which I purchased in my early 20’s.

At 2 Fifth, I gravitated to projects such as setting up educational programs for shareholders, including bringing in professionals to speak on fire safety measures for our building and shareholders’ apartments, and issues like what to do in the event of a fire. Another project related to collecting and updating contact information from residents for our BuildingLink system so we could quickly communicate about things like security issues and power outages. I worked on improving the co-op’s water supply by switching from a sand-based backflow system to an improved fine-fiber filtration system, which saved about a million gallons of water a year and greatly improved our purification levels. We also completed a backup power generator installation that would enable critical building functions like elevators in the event of an outage. And I was part of the committee that oversaw a $1 million plus hallway renovation that we completed just before Covid. We strive for continuous improvement.

Local Law 97. W​​e're effectively dealing with curbing our carbon emissions, including a recent dual-fuel boiler conversion. That gives us the flexibility to buy natural gas or oil depending on market prices, which will give us a return on our investment in several years. Then there’s the future challenge of emissions reduction. This is a 70-year old building, and a few years ago we started having problems with our windows and noise and air infiltration. Replacing them would cost many millions of dollars given the size of our building, and I said, “You know what? We have to really have to look holistically at the infrastructure issues that need to be addressed and come up with a long-term capital plan.”

We hired an engineering firm to review our level of compliance. The building has a B energy grade, and between the boiler conversion and extensive facade work done a decade ago, we’ll be compliant until about 2030.  Our windows have another several years of usable life, which gives us some time there. However, we are looking at the building envelope and thermal efficiency and exploring modern heating and cooling systems. 

Group effort. I’m on the finance committee, and we try to run the building very responsibly to keep maintenance increases down. It was just a 1% increase this past year. There’s not a lot of ability to control expenses like taxes and staff salaries, so we’re very cautious about discretionary spending. As for our reserve fund, it’s exceeded our goals. We moved the money to higher yielding accounts and refinanced the mortgage at favorable rates when rates were low, providing a solid financial foundation for future projects.

I also serve on the interview committee. The financial review of applicants is somewhat structured, but with the personal interview, you’re looking at people’s character to see whether they’ll be good members of the community, and you want to understand their motives for moving into the building. But it’s also important to convey to people how the co-op is run and set expectations. Interviews are usually very stressful for people, so we try to put them at ease, which also creates a bond once they become shareholders.