Newport Office Center IV, Jersey City, N.J.

   For the same reasons people put it in their kitchens and hundreds of other places: appearance and durability.
   The Newport Office Center IV, also known as the Insurance Services Office Building, is 22 stories tall and offers more than 860,000 ft² of space — but NOC IV is only one of eight skyscraper towers that encompass Newport’s Office Center. The complex holds approximately five million square feet of space; it’s also notable for its design that allows for easy installation of electronic technology in drop ceilings and raised floors.
   And, the Office Center is only one component of a 600-acre master-planned mixed-use community that’s been under construction since 1986 on the Hudson River across from Manhattan’s World Financial Center.
   Known as Newport, the project is being developed by the LeFrak Organization of Rego Park, N.Y. Founded in 1901, LeFrak is recognized as one of the largest private landlords in the United States.
   As a mixed use development, the project also encompasses all the community’s infrastructure – including a power substation, marina and on-site parking for 13,000 vehicles – multiple towers of apartments and condominiums, and a retail component that includes both open air shopping experiences and an enclosed mall.
   Although conceived as a design to rival Manhattan’s commercial skyline on the other side of the Hudson, the project initially excited residential renters with rates well below those charged across the river. The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and the resulting destruction of office space at and around the World Trade Center complex, helped spur a move on the office segment of the project, attracting such tenants as Merrill Lynch, UBS, CIGNA and U.S. Trust Co.
   Insurance Services Office (ISO), the main tenant of NOC IV, is the largest supplier of data to the insurance industry in the United States. The lease of 390,000 ft² of space in the new building for its headquarters replaces its previous location at 7 World Trade Center.
   The project is huge by just about anyone’s perspective, including that of Ernie Sesso of Sesso Custom Tile Inc. The Little Falls, N.J.-based masonry contractor has installed stone in and on many of the project’s skyscrapers, including NOC IV.
   Sesso says LeFrak is strongly oriented toward natural stone throughout the property.
   “They like the luxury of granite and marble in all their buildings,” he says. “In the bathrooms you find a lot of marble, marble floors and marble vanity tops. They also like granite kitchens in their residential units.”
   Anthony Scavo, LeFrak’s vice president of construction, says there are good reasons for that.
   “In my opinion, natural stone achieves the ultimate in beauty and permanent maintenance when installed properly,” he says. “The choices of stone are infinite, and the several finishes give us flexibility in design. You can combine contrasting colors and finishes quite easily and achieve a myriad of high-end results.”
   The development company also appreciates the benefits of natural stone on the exteriors of its structures. For instance, NOC IV incorporates some 150,000 ft² of flamed granite on the faces of the structure and on the adjoining sidewalks.
   The piece de resistance of NOC IV, however, is the building’s lobby/atrium, which utilizes some 3,500 ft² of Juparana Columbo granite on the floor and wall cladding.
   “LeFrak’s lobbies are very magnificent,” says Sesso. “The company spends a lot of money on the lobbies. They seem to believe it’s like the living room. When a person walks into a house they want to have a beautiful presentation, and it’s the same with these buildings. They really jazz them up that way.”
   Sesso’s experience with LeFrak and Newport is extensive. His company started doing work for the developer early in the project’s history, and has continued through the various components.
   “When the developers came in and saw that we could do this kind of work, our names kept getting thrown up there,” he says. “Once you’re in the area and have a track record for doing the work, they keep coming back.”
   However, he thinks it goes beyond the ability to do a quality job.
   “Some of it is just having the ability to speak the truth,” he says. “When we can’t do a job in the time frame they want, we tell them; it alleviates a lot of problems. Some of these installations aren’t the easiest things to build.”
   Although not getting into that aspect of how the contractors for Newport have been selected, LeFrak’s Scavo says it’s a combination of experience, manpower availability and price.
   Manpower is definitely an issue in a project of this size. Sesso says that, because his company had crews working on several Newport components at the same time, it’s difficult to put a firm number on how many were involved in NOC IV. He estimates that the firm averaged between 60 and 80 men onsite working on exterior cladding, sidewalks, bathrooms, and elevator lobbies.
   “Our work on the building went on for about a year,” he says. “We had eight men working for two-and-a-half months just on the lobby.”
   Even so, the time frame for completing the lobby proved to be a tight one.
   “What often happens, because they’re on a fast-track schedule, LeFrak expects fast service and the work to be done immediately,” Sesso says.
   Jonathan Mitnick of the Moonachie, N.J.-based CCS Stone Inc., which supplied the Juparana Columbo for the lobby, agrees.
   “What always seems to happen is that the planning is on a tight schedule and then when the contractor gets the release to go ahead, the stone was needed yesterday,” Mitnick says.
   Close collaboration between suppliers and masonry contractors is always important, but in the case of the Newport projects, that’s especially true.
   “Selection of materials are based on design requirements and on availability and cost of materials,” says LeFrak’s Scavo. “Material is ordered from distributors, sometimes from the quarry and also from the subcontractors.”
   Both Sesso and Mitnick say for this particular development, much of time the stone is specified by the developer, who then leaves the sub to come up with a supplier. Sesso estimates that 90 percent of the stone his company has installed at Newport has come from CCS, which also provided stone for other areas of the development.
   “The relationship between Sesso and LeFrak is pretty common in the business we find ourselves in,” says Mitnick. “The client is looking for a finished product, and the contractor has other people bidding on the work. I have to be keen in what I do because Sesso’s looking for the best deal and the best support.”
   While finding a Juparana Columbo within the color parameters set by the developer wouldn’t normally be a problem, Mitnick’s comment about the need to have the stone yesterday was only a slight exaggeration. Obtaining the stone from the quarry site in India involved too long a time frame to make it feasible.
   “The shipping lane is much longer, and there are sometimes logistic problems,” says Mitnick. “The time it takes to process and communicate can sometimes be a little diluted.”
   Instead, Mitnick says he turned to a factory in Vigo, Spain, that had the blocks on-hand.
   “I had a commitment from my supplier to produce the job in approximately two weeks,” Mitnick says. “The blocks were gang-sawn, polished and cut to size in Spain. It then took two to three weeks to transit them to New York.”
   Additionally, by having the pieces cut and polished in Spain, Mitnick says he was able to save Sesso both time and the cost of labor had the work been done here.
   Mitnick says the five-week turnaround wasn’t any big thing.
   “Of course, it’s a rush to deliver it, but it’s what the client needed,” he says. “Sesso was depending on me, and Ernie can’t look back; he’s already five projects ahead.”
   However, Sesso doesn’t see it that way.
   “It was a nice project for both of us, and CCS performed really well,” Sesso concludes. “We got to the stone on time and they fabricated some things in-shop to hit the deadlines. They really expedited this and it came out well.”

Developer/Designer: LeFrak Organization Inc., Rego Park, N.Y.
Masonry Contractor: Sesso Custom Tile Inc., Little Falls, N.J.
Stone Supplier: CCS Stone Inc., Moonachie, N.J.

This article first appeared in the September 2004 print edition of Stone Business. ©2004 Western Business Media Inc.