New York City Economic Development Corporation is appealing to the commercial real estate industry for help sourcing vacant space to use as surge hospitals in the fight against coronavirus. 

With more than 75,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and more than 1,200 deaths to date, New York city officials are urging commercial real estate owners and landlords to open up space that can be utilized for coronavirus patients. 

Lauren Wolf, senior vice president of New York's EDC, provided a space criteria checklist for owners and landlords, including: 

• The space should be more than 80,000 square feet, but ideally around 1 million square feet
• Possess all utilities with HVAC and temperature control deemed essential
• Be an open plan concept, but ideally on multiple floors. If the building is shared with other tenants, a dedicated entrance is critical
• Floorplates need to be 10,000 square foot or larger, and there should be multiple bathrooms per floor
• The space should also have the potential to connect to a generator for back-up power
• ADA access, showers and lighting control are also preferred but not essential

Ms Wolf told NAREIM the space currently needed was larger facilities. "The bigger the better," she said in an email. "Larger facilities are easier to staff and supply. [We would] prefer a smaller number of very large facilities, even if they don’t match perfectly with the criteria [above]." 

New York's EDC has already worked with some real estate owners, and Ms Wolf said those already in contact with her team and EDC need not reach back out. However, new spaces were welcomed. She urged those interested to contact her team on the following emails:

Lauren Wolf - lwolf@edc.nyc

Sunitha Amalraj - samalraj@edc.ny

Eric Rivera - erivera@edc.nyc

Kim Bernardin - kbernardin@edc.nyc

Story posted: March 31, 2020