Troy, MI, December 20--A joint venture of Steelcase Inc. and two other companies - including a New Jersey firm - is selling prebuilt office buildings, research labs and warehouses to businesses nationwide.
The Grand Rapids-based office furniture maker says the venture will save time and money for customers.
Steelcase, New Jersey-based real estate company The Gale Co. and Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds formed Workstage LLC in 1999. After years of research, Workstage has filled about 40 orders for ready-made office and warehouse buildings.
Workstage says its buildings can be built, exclusive of land costs, for $69 a square foot, compared with $80 to $90 per square foot for a flex building. Such buildings combine warehouse and office space.
One Workstage building recently opened in the Detroit suburb of Troy. The one-story office and distribution facility fits a pattern long popular with auto suppliers, research companies and warehouse users.
But unlike most such flex buildings, a Workstage structure is ordered from a factory, and the various pieces are delivered and assembled on site.
"A traditional building requires electrical contractors, pipe fitters and other trades, while a Workstage building comes prepackaged with all the wiring, heating and ventilation systems," Bob Shepard, principal of Troy-based NBS, an interior space planner and office furniture distributor, told The Detroit News for a story Sunday.
Shepard's long relationship with Steelcase led him to order a Workstage building earlier this year for NBS' new headquarters in Troy. It was assembled in six months - about a third faster than a conventionally built structure, he said.
The 40,300-square-foot building includes office space for 60 workers and a warehouse area for work stations and other functions. The building can be expanded fairly quickly if NBS grows, which appears likely, Shepard said. Revenue for NBS was $51 million last year, up from $3 million in 1996.
Most of the building's promised cost savings come from a raised flooring system, or stage. In an 18-inch cavity between the ground and floor, Workstage engineers have packed the building's heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems, data and phone lines and electrical wires.
Apart from utility savings, exterior walls are precast concrete and assembled on site. Once the walls are secured to the foundation, workers cut spaces for windows before installing them.
"There's definite cost and time savings from a Workstage building, and we are looking at them for some of our clients," said David Farbman, president of the real estate company Farbman Group in Southfield. "It remains to be seen how well they'll be accepted, but so far, so good."
