New York City Concrete Design

When I was at the recent World of Concrete show I met Jane Reamer of Iron Age Designs a designer and builder of custom Iron grates. My first thought was what an excellent New York City concrete design idea. The iron grates have an old historical high function appearance.

As you can see in the photos they are ideal for adding a decorative functional solution to concrete.  Notice the photo with the fish inlaid into the concrete. That one is from a walkway in Boston Massachusetts.  In New York City a concrete design idea is for decorative grates around trees that line the avenues like Park, Fifth or Lexington.

Iron Age Grates has found a unique niche in the big concrete market. Like with many products mentioned in Metrocrete concrete is not a stand alone product. There is always something that works with concrete that makes concrete better. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Is it the grates that make concrete look so good or is it the concrete that makes the grates look good. (I’d rather use the word great rather than good but too much?)

Anyway I liked the grates and thought that since I’ve spent so much time in New York City that they are a notable Concrete Design idea in any classic urban area.

For more information contact Jane at 206-276-0925 or visit their site at Iron Age Grates . Just click the link.

If you own or are looking to purchase a retail center and want to add value here’s an inexpensive solution with an application of one of Stardek’s concrete coatings. The system here is a decorative concrete spray system which can be viewed by video by visting www.metrocrete.tv .

Curb appeal with any property is critical. Think about walking into a grocery store, walking down an aisle and grabbing a jar of lets say … peanut butter. Nine times out of 10 a shopper will grab the one with the nice label. An inferior quality product with an attractive eye catching label will outsell a superior quality product with an unattractive label.

The same theory holds true for real estate.Think in terms of a retail center with 10 stores. I don’t know if there is such thing as $20.00 per square foot retail anymore but lets use it for a quick analysis.

Assuming that rents are net of expenses and taxes and the center is 10,000 square feet, a 1 dollar increase in net rent will go from $200,000 to $210,000. It doesn’t seem like much at first but $200,000.00 net income captitalized at 7% equals $2,857,000.00. $210,000 of net income capitalized at 7% equals $3,000,000. Thats a $143,000.00 increase in value.

If the area to be resurfaced is 200 feet long and 8 feet deep thats a total of 1,600 square feet. If you hire a pro at $7.00 per square foot, thats a total cost of $11,200.00. The improved curb appeal should result in at least a $1.00 psf incease in value or net $130,000.00 increase in value.

I use retail as an example because I see it everywhere. There are 10,s of thousands of small retail centers with unattractive value draining concrete everywhere.

Take a look at these photos of a retail center sidewalk resurfaced by a Stardek installer. You may be wondering if there are other options. You will find there are no economically viable solutions. If you notice there is a handicap ramp leading from the street sidewalk. That creates code issues so you only have the option of thin concrete coatings. The same holds true for stairs. Anything thicker than a 1/2 inch will violate code. That eliminates stone or tile. Entrance into the retail stores will have height issues at the doorways. Concrete overlays are the solution…period!

If you are looking for an expert to resurface your concrete contact Stardek. They have over 4,000 trained applicators nationwide.

Their resume runs deep -Universal Studios, Holiday Inn, Starbucks, McDonalds, Lowes, Cypress Gardens, Best Western, Firestone, Harley Davidson …the list goes on.

This first photo is before an investment in Stardek Decorative Concrete Coatings.

The project is partway there.

Here’s the finished product with money in your pocket.

Let me know what you think about this blog post. Is this info valuable to you? What kind of information would you like to find here?