A Novel Way to Prepare Buildings for Coronavirus

As cases of novel coronavirus continue to spread in the New York metropolitan area, co-op and condo boards are struggling to take smart steps to protect their residents without sowing panic. Here’s one piece of level-headed advice: prepare for coronavirus the same way you prepare for a doormen’s strike. 

The advice comes from Alex Kalajian, chief executive at Solstice Residential Group, who, according to Brick Underground, has distributed a memo to 85 buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, urging boards to get residents ready to perform essential duties if building staffers become sick or decide to stay at home. 

“Prepare for the possibility of a reduction of workforce,” Kalajian advises, by getting residents to volunteer to handle essential building services, including “security, lobby coverage, mail sorting, and garbage collection.” Boards and residents, he adds, should also anticipate the closure of such communal amenities as gyms, pools and playrooms. A temporary halt halt to non-essential deliveries and apartment renovations may also become necessary to limit the number of non-residents who come inside the building, the memo says. 

Aside from any staffing challenges, Kalajian says buildings should also prepare for “delays in obtaining essential outside building services, including mechanical systems, building supplies, trades for general repairs and maintenance and other outside services, such as sanitation.” In addition, capital improvements to boilers and elevators may be delayed. 

Daniel Wollman, chief executive of the property management company Gumley Haft, says his company does not anticipate residents taking over day-to-day building employee responsibilities. “A situation such as a strike-reduction level of employees in our buildings can only be described as a worst-case scenario,” he says. “And we are not there yet.”