The Construction Insiders Podcast: Season 2, Episode 5
Overview
In this episode of Construction Insiders, host Jessica Busch sits down with Jason Zubatkin, Practice Leader for Cultural Institutions at Cumming Group, to explore the intricate world of large-scale historic restorations. From uncovering hidden architectural secrets to integrating modern systems into iconic buildings like St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Jason shares insights into the delicate balance between preserving history and meeting contemporary demands. Learn about the challenges, surprises, and cutting-edge technologies—such as 3D scanning and drone surveys—that are revolutionizing the field, as well as the importance of assembling the right team to navigate these unique projects. Whether you’re a construction enthusiast or simply fascinated by the intersection of past and future, this episode offers a deep dive into the complexities and rewards of historic restoration.
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Jessica Busch: Join us on this episode of the Construction Insiders podcast as we explore the world of complex cultural restorations.
[00:00:07] Jessica Busch: On today’s episode of the Construction Insiders podcast, we are joined by Jason Zubatkin, the practice leader of Cultural Institutions at Cumming Group. We’re here to discuss the intricate world of large scale historic restorations. Thank you for taking the time, Jason, to sit down. I know it’s a busy day, so I really appreciate it.
[00:00:24] Jason Zubatkin: Thank you so much for having me. Looking forward to an engaging dialogue.
[00:00:29] Jessica Busch: So, talking about this topic of historic preservation, we haven’t touched on it yet in this podcast, so we wanted to dive in today, talk about, you know, aging buildings, the demands for modernization, how we balance that, the expertise needed to preserve the architectural.
[00:00:47] Jessica Busch: Well, being, um, while still progressing, um, uh, that challenge seems to be increasingly vital. So hoping you’re the, you’re the guy to walk us through it.
[00:00:59] Jason Zubatkin: I hope so too.
[00:01:00] Jessica Busch: As getting to know you, I think I think you are. So, um, so Jason, let’s, let’s jump in knowing you’ve been involved in some of the most high profile restoration projects over the years around the world.
[00:01:14] Jessica Busch: Um, I know you’re gonna have a lot to talk about, just getting to know you over the last couple months since Zubatkin, um, joined Cumming Group, I think you have a lot of information to give us on this topic and where, where do we start? Where do we start from? Maybe a listener that isn’t as familiar with this kind of niche topic.
[00:01:35] Jessica Busch: Where, where should we, where should we kick this off?
[00:01:37] Jason Zubatkin: So. Great question. The first thing I’ll say is that every project, in terms of a historical restoration, is unique, but at the same point in time, they are all incredibly exciting and give clients. Oftentimes, great opportunity to, as you said, preserve architectural integrity and things that are so important to us as a society and our history, while modernizing the real estate to be able to use for future programs and activities and really be able to, to grow and develop programs that are being used.
[00:02:11] Jason Zubatkin: There’s so much to get into here, and we could probably spend the next 5 or 6 hours talking about it, but I think we’ll focus on a little, a few of the fundamentals.
[00:02:19] Jessica Busch: Okay.
[00:02:20] Jason Zubatkin: And one of the things to start with is understanding what you have. Buildings today are not built the same way that they were built 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 years ago.
[00:02:31] Jason Zubatkin: Okay. And that relates not just to the architectural finishes and everything that you see on the or in front of you, but everything behind the walls as well.
[00:02:39] Jessica Busch: The secrets.
[00:02:40] Jason Zubatkin: The, yeah. The secrets. Exactly. The secrets. The undiscovered secrets. Um, sometimes they’re good undiscovered secrets, like there was additional structural support that can actually support larger programs or larger real estate than what was needed.
[00:02:54] Jason Zubatkin: Sometimes they’re not so good. Like the plumbing never ended up being completed in the right way and we have some illegal issues that we need to deal with. So when you’re really starting a historic restoration project, you need to start with the facts. And that relates to making sure you get a good level of due diligence done, which is not as simple as just hiring someone to go take some pictures and doing some little demo.
[00:03:18] Jason Zubatkin: It’s really trying to understand the systems, how the systems work, and how the systems could work in the future. And when I’m talking about systems, specifically mechanical, your air conditioning, your heating, your electrical distribution, um, your plumbing distribution, and probably most importantly, life safety.
[00:03:38] Jason Zubatkin: Sprinklers, fire alarm. We need to be safe in these buildings that we’re repairing and we’re re reinventing.
[00:03:46] Jessica Busch: So, What are, and I think you were almost going to get there, what are some of these challenges, or, or are there, have you experienced a particularly challenging, um, restoration, restoration project that really opened your eyes to the complexities that can be hidden in an undertaking like this?
[00:04:06] Jason Zubatkin: There’s a lot to talk about here, and there’s a lot of great projects. There’s a project specifically that I think we’ll talk about, which is St. Pat’s Cathedral, right here in New York, New York. Incredible project, incredible landmark, not just known locally, but known all over the world. Um, where we had three major components that we needed to deal with on this project. There was a residence for the priest, specifically, a residence for the cardinal, as well as the cathedral itself.
[00:04:35] Jason Zubatkin: Going through that project had so many unique surprises. Everything from, frankly, plumbing actually not being installed and just being left out of the building rather than any kind of code compliance, which, yes, interesting. Interesting. Even in today’s world, that’s Even, even in today’s world, and we laugh about it now, I’ll tell you, there was a moment on the project, it was like, wow, what are we going to do here?
[00:04:59] Jason Zubatkin: But, everything from surprises like that to surprises that were actually great surprises, like seeing some architectural history that actually we didn’t even know existed and none of the records had. So, I think going back to my earlier point when we were talking initially, each one of these projects is very unique.
[00:05:16] Jason Zubatkin: And whether you’re talking about St. Pat’s Cathedral, a project like that, whether you’re talking about the Museum of Natural History again in New York, Planet Word Museum in Washington, D.C. All of these projects have, it’s almost like a puzzle, and, and, you know, construction is a puzzle itself, but a puzzle where you only have half the puzzle pieces and you kind of have to recreate some of the other ones is, well, an interesting game to play.
[00:05:40] Jessica Busch: Okay, so speaking of interesting games and puzzle pieces, on these projects, you talked, you mentioned a couple surprising discoveries, but when, I’m assuming these are more the norm than, the rarity. When you do find these interesting discoveries, how does that reshape your project approach?
[00:06:00] Jason Zubatkin: So, I think for starters, when you’re thinking about a historic restoration and a project approach, you need to build in some flexibility.
[00:06:08] Jason Zubatkin: There’s some flexibility on the budgeting side and having appropriate contingencies to be able to deal with some of these surprises that you would never be able to understand. But you also need to have some flexibility in terms of just the fact finding mission. This is not where it’s an exam and you take the exam and then you have all the answers.
[00:06:28] Jason Zubatkin: The answers happen over time. And what you need to be doing when you’re thinking about the design, when you’re thinking about the logistics, when you’re thinking about the construction, of making sure you have the right balance of solid facts to be able to build a plan upon, but a level of flexibility within that plan to be able to deal with those, um, undiscovered issues that get discovered as part of the project
[00:06:51] Jessica Busch: And maybe in this sector more flexibility than others.
[00:06:55] Jason Zubatkin: It absolutely it absolutely needs to be. I mean, you know you even think about the difference between a ground up construction versus a historic restoration. Ground up construction has its own set of complexities as we all know, but you’re also starting with usually, very little, if anything at all.
[00:07:14] Jessica Busch: Right.
[00:07:15] Jason Zubatkin: And you’re start, and you’re able to build that puzzle yourself.
[00:07:19] Jessica Busch: The way you want.
[00:07:19] Jason Zubatkin: The way that you want. Well, hopefully, ideally, the way that you want.
[00:07:23] Jessica Busch: Depending on the client.
[00:07:24] Jason Zubatkin: In, in the Historic Restorations, you have a whole bunch of different things that you need to be thinking about. Plus, the idea with the Historic Restoration is preserving those important architectural pieces while being able to develop a building for future use and for successful future use without having limitations necessarily on how the organization or institution is gonna be using the building.
[00:07:49] Jessica Busch: So when we’re going into this process. Then, what does the team look like? What do you, to really get a project on a successful kind of first step, what, from design, construction, what do you like those teams to look like?
[00:08:04] Jason Zubatkin: So, let’s go through the whole process here because I think there’s a, there’s a , process in terms of how a team would get developed.
[00:08:12] Jessica Busch: Okay.
[00:08:12] Jason Zubatkin: First things first, you, you need to have your head coach. You need to, and I’ll be, this is a little bit self serving, but in all honesty and the advice I give to everyone, um, whether they’re talking to us or not is you need to have that owner’s rep who’s able to have the experience, who’s gone through these projects before and can determine when we have those challenges, when we have those surprises, how to navigate the team in terms of a course of action.
[00:08:36] Jessica Busch: A veteran quarterback.
[00:08:37] Jason Zubatkin: A veteran quarterback.
[00:08:38] Jessica Busch: I like that. Okay.
[00:08:39] Jason Zubatkin: Um, from there, there’s always a architect involved from obviously a licensing and legal perspective to be able to develop those design documents all the way through construction documents. That, that design team will also include the appropriate engineers.
[00:08:55] Jason Zubatkin: Um, there would, uh, potentially be a historic restoration consultant who would be involved. Um, but also as important, especially when we’re getting into some of the, uh, later design work. Bringing on the construction manager or general contractor who’s going to be involved in this project. Again, thinking about logistics, thinking about how all of these puzzle pieces, half of which we know, half of which we don’t, are going to come together are really important.
[00:09:23] Jason Zubatkin: Oftentimes, we use and leverage our construction partners for probe exercises, for going in and doing some initial projects to be able to see, well, what’s behind some of these walls? Where can we hopefully mitigate some of our surprises further on? And how do we ultimately set up this project for success?
[00:09:44] Jason Zubatkin: Now, during construction, and most importantly, once construction’s over, and the owner or occupier is actually using the space.
[00:09:52] Jessica Busch: So, this historic preservation, it, it, it’s kind of feeling like in this discussion so far, it’s really a balancing act. Between multiple stakeholders and time and what it needs to be used for now and in the future.
[00:10:09] Jessica Busch: So, what approach do you use to really balance between preserving history and, and that authenticity and accommodating for the modern needs of this building and what the future might hold?
[00:10:24] Jason Zubatkin: That balance is the perfect word to describe it. It’s not just about the project, right? There’s oftentimes in these projects, they’re either local or even national entities that have a role in making sure we have the right preservation plan to be able to respect the architecture of old, to respect the building of old, but bring it up to modern day use.
[00:10:48] Jason Zubatkin: So, there’s a big conversation and dialogue there that needs to happen to make sure that those entities are involved early and often to make sure that we have alignment on a plan. That’s one thing. The other thing is, is that when we’re really thinking about these renovations, yeah, we’re looking in the past, right?
[00:11:06] Jason Zubatkin: What exists? What’s there? But we’re also looking towards the future.
[00:11:09] Jessica Busch: Right.
[00:11:10] Jason Zubatkin: What is this space going to be used as? Is it the same use? Is it a different use? Are there different amount of people coming in? I talked about the most important thing, making sure we have, um, safety in terms of these buildings.
[00:11:22] Jason Zubatkin: How do we get people safely in and out of these buildings?
[00:11:25] Jessica Busch: In older buildings, that, that probably was not the first thought when they were built.
[00:11:29] Jason Zubatkin: It wasn’t, and the rules and regulations of how, what safety is have changed significantly.
[00:11:35] Jessica Busch: Right.
[00:11:35] Jason Zubatkin: Fire sprinklers, all of these type of things that need to come into balance together.
[00:11:40] Jason Zubatkin: No one wants to see sprinklers just fire, uh, On top of a beautiful, um, uh, ceiling that was architecturally
[00:11:48] Jessica Busch: Mosaic, uh, beautiful stained glass. We gotta figure out how to get around that stuff.
[00:11:51] Jason Zubatkin: We have to figure out how to get around it and make sure we have the balances of the use today, the safety of today, with the beauty and the respect for yes- for yesterday.
[00:12:01] Jessica Busch: Yeah. And so, um, with technology and and moving forward, tools like, you know, we’ve heard about 3D scanning and drone surveys, all kind of what’s the norm right now, um, It’s really, I would assume, revolutionizing how we approach a building like this. What other new methodologies, technologies, are you seeing in this space to really help do the balance and make sure the balance happens.
[00:12:28] Jason Zubatkin: There are definitely more tools in the toolbox than there ever have been. The 3D scanning has been a really, really positive impact on understanding some of those surprises early on, which help us plan for a more successful project. And not only just the 3D scanning itself, but the level of 3D scanning now, what things they can actually see behind the walls, there used to be limits on them, now you almost get a pretty good picture of exactly what you have.
[00:12:54] Jason Zubatkin: Um, so that’s definitely one thing. The drones you mentioned as well, are another that can almost scan an entire building from the exterior. Really cool technology to use. No one’s going to want me to pilot one of those drones, but really cool.
[00:13:07] Jessica Busch: Especially here in New York.
[00:13:08] Jason Zubatkin: Especially here in New York. But really cool technologies that are able to be leveraged.
[00:13:14] Jason Zubatkin: I think the best plan of attack though is, is you can’t use these as a one off. I mean, again, going back to, you know, the, the veteran quarterback, the head coach, however, whatever analogy we want to use, we need to make sure we have a plan in place because all these things are cool. They all have, you know, their pitch line of, Yes, we use us we’re going to be great. But you need to make sure you have the right plan because it’s not just about spending money on cool toys. This is about having the right approach to be able to get value for every dollar that is spent, whether it’s on the due diligence side of it, on the design side of it, or on the construction side of it.
[00:13:48] Jessica Busch: So, how do you help a client balance, make that balance between, you know, spending money, that initial investment, right? Versus kind of what these long term operational costs are going to be. Um, what does that initial interaction look like?
[00:14:07] Jason Zubatkin: One of the things that we really like to do initially is talk about, What are the goals for this building?
[00:14:12] Jason Zubatkin: What are the goals for these spaces? Understanding the programming. What is the use going to be? Are these educational facilities? Is this going to be a public exhibit, like a museum would have? Is this going to be smaller intimate spaces that need other soundproofing? Understanding that programming up front and going through not just what needs to be in the building, but also the adjacencies and where things will go really help us start to develop the foundation of how this project plan is going to work. Then we can, once we understand that, maybe in one space it’s really important acoustics and we can bring in a 3D scanner for that to understand the steel structure and what’s there in the vibrations. Maybe in another space it’s not as important to have that because it’s a completely different use.
[00:15:01] Jason Zubatkin: And then maybe there we only need to do some level of probes. So it’s made, every dollar, as I said, every dollar is important on these projects, and you need to make sure you get the most out of it instead of just spending money wherever seems the cool place to spend money at a time.
[00:15:17] Jessica Busch: Right. So, still looking kind of long term picture here, what crucial factors should someone consider when they’re planning for the future?
[00:15:29] Jessica Busch: And when I mean future, I’m talking the ongoing maintenance of these restored historic properties.
[00:15:35] Jason Zubatkin: Great question. So, as we said before, right, it’s not just the construction, it’s the turnover. It’s the use of these spaces. That’s why money’s being spent anyway. So, I think one of the really critical things, and one of the things we’ve actually brought in house as part of our overall strategic planning, is understanding the operations.
[00:15:56] Jason Zubatkin: I’ll tell you a quick story. The Clark Art Institute, beautiful museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts. We were fortunate enough to be involved with both the renovation, um, and restoration of that project as well as the expansion. In the renovation and restoration of the project, there were mechanical systems that were designed to be a part of this restoration that were incredibly advanced.
[00:16:21] Jason Zubatkin: Really cool things. Geothermal wells, there’s plenty of research and papers on this. The Clark really did a great job of investing in their infrastructure. But we also had a staff who was very used to what they’ve used before. Right. They had, I mean, frankly, there were some band aids there and there was some tape and duct tape that was being used, but there were systems that were very familiar because they’ve been there for and they had worked-
[00:16:45] Jessica Busch: They had been making it work. At least.
[00:16:47] Jason Zubatkin: Part of the discussion with The Clark was well we’re in a different system now, as part of this design, as part of this construction. Let’s plan with your facility staff to have them come in and partner and understand, well, here’s where we need staff, here’s the training that we need, here are the exercises that we need.
[00:17:04] Jason Zubatkin: We help them figure out the preventative maintenance side of things and how do we best
[00:17:08] Jessica Busch: Talk to them about challenges they’re seeing, get their input, get them involved.
[00:17:12] Jason Zubatkin: Exactly, because just like in a project, when you think about the maintenance and, of facilities in these types of projects, that’s a project itself.
[00:17:20] Jason Zubatkin: And it needs the right plan to be able to be integrated as part of the long term success of the building.
[00:17:26] Jessica Busch: Yeah. And so, with kind of these challenges or the, the, you know, the long term thinking, which is a challenge because you don’t know what the future holds, but a lot of uniqueness has been discussed.
[00:17:38] Jessica Busch: What about.. Is there a common thread? What are the similarities that you see in these, these types of projects?
[00:17:45] Jason Zubatkin: So, I think the biggest similarity is that this process, like the importance of a process in these type of projects when you don’t have all the facts, is just paramount. Having the veteran quarterback, making sure that we have people in the right place, making sure we have the right team built up.
[00:18:02] Jason Zubatkin: There are plenty of talented architects, engineers, construction managers, general contractors out there, but this is a specialty and making sure it’s not just the right firm, but the right people who are supporting these projects becomes critically important. And as you’re developing that plan having a true partner with that client talking through some of these potentially hard decisions.
[00:18:25] Jason Zubatkin: It’s not easy to just say hey we need to replace the HVAC infrastructure and all of the duck work in the building. That’s a lot of dollars being invested. But understanding both the limitations as well as the opportunities of existing systems versus new systems, it’s a real dialogue and there isn’t always an obvious answer.
[00:18:46] Jason Zubatkin: But what we look to work on with our clients is making sure all of the facts are on the table as best as we know them, so that informed answers can be, can be generated.
[00:18:55] Jessica Busch: Yeah. It, it is fascinating and I, I really thank you for sitting down with me today and, and talking about this very specific topic.
[00:19:05] Jessica Busch: Um, I think you’ve really highlighted that the balance between, you know, what these architectural buildings need, um, to shine, but also that appropriate level of modification really to sustain them into the future. And I, I know we could go on and get more in the weeds. But I don’t have time for that with you today.
[00:19:25] Jessica Busch: Um, so for those that want to dive a little bit deeper, have some lingering questions, what’s the best way for them to get, reach you? LinkedIn? Is that easy?
[00:19:36] Jason Zubatkin: LinkedIn is, is very easy, email, um, my contact information is out there. So always, always happy to have a conversation and talk through how we go through these projects in the right way.
[00:19:48] Jessica Busch: Awesome. And then for those of you that aren’t maybe as familiar with Jason, um, his last name is Zubatkin is Z U B A T K I N. So, thank you again, Jason. It was a pleasure. And, um, I hope we get to talk soon.
[00:20:01] Jason Zubatkin: Can’t wait.
[00:20:01] Jessica Busch: Right.
[00:20:02] Jason Zubatkin: Thanks, everyone.
[00:20:03] Jessica Busch: Bye.