I. One thing I have become convinced of is that plans must be carefully reviewed by our management and marketing experts at the earliest possible stage to avoid what may be costly problems.

Let me give you just a few examples of where this has not been done or mistakes had not been caught.

I recall one building where unfortunately I had an interest as developer where the elevator cab was so smell that it would not accommodate families moving in with ordinary-size sofas end davenports. It was necessary for us to rig up a sling underneath the cab in order to get this furniture up to the tenant's apartment.

Another case involved a building in which the entrance to the powder room was off the living room in such a manner that those sitting in the living room were forced to look into the toilet. Obviously, these apartments were difficult to rent.

Another instance I recall where the architect was given a duty of selecting the carpet for en apartment building. He acted a plain carpet, which I must admit looked very good, but had to be removed around the elevators end the entry way after about 30 days because it showed the dirt so badly, even though it was a dark, natural hue. It is essential from a management point of view to have a patterned carpet in these areas.

Still another example is a building we managed which had a fresh chute with a compactor at the bottom. The door swings and entrances to the compactor room were of a size it was impossible to get the carts through. It was necessary to completely reconstruct this wall.

In still another building, the architect's plane showed adequate garage space to meet the zoning requirements, but when the building was built, nowhere near the proper number of care could be gotten into the apace, even though they were Volkswagen Bugs.

II. Another point I feel quite strongly about is that architects in many respects are like doctors-they have their specialities. They, themselves, don't recognize this as much as doctors do, and when you select an architect who is not experienced in one type of building, you may run into very serious problems.

Examples of this I have run into involve, first of ell, a shopping center that was designed end built by an architect who had an outstanding reputation as a residential single-family house designer. The center was a digester! The fire walls were misplaced. The commercial space was difficult to subdivide to meat retail tenants' requirements.

Another example is an office building we managed. It was built circular, ale Marine City. The office spaces were, therefore, pie-shaped Office furniture is rectangular. Therefore, the spaces could not be laid out to make efficient, satisfactory offices.

I recall as a broker, offering a loft building, well located, particularly with respect to public transportation and good light, to an art school. They selected an architect to advise them who had a reputation of being unsympathetic to rehabilitation and adaptive re-use. The architect convinced them that the project was not feasible, and then subsequently built them a new building at greater cost.

The concept of specialization, not only applies to types of buildings, but types of tenants who may use the buildings.

I am reminded of an apartment building built for low-income families where the architect used the typical long corridor-type apartment with some offsets in a corridors and exits and entrances et both ends. The vandalism in these corridors from teenagers was excessive and far greater than would have been the case had the building been designed with separate entrances off of small belle, servicing a few apartments.

III. One other distasteful experience I have bed is where the architect sets himself up as the arbitrator over the coat of change orders-between the owner and the contractor. The moat frequent type of change order generally arises out of some ambiguity or missing information in the plans and specifications. It is therefore an anomaly in these cease to have the architect act as arbitrator in these instances where responsibility or cause of the necessary change is a result of his work.

IV. I also have great difficulty in agreeing to architectural fees that are related to the cost of construction. It can therefore escalate up if change orders are incurred. Most frequently change orders may result either from items which I mentioned above or other conditions which in no way relate to the work of the architect. It seems improper to me then that his fees should be increased because of these conditions. Generally I try to negotiate a fixed fee for the architect's services.