Haril Pandya
Haril Pandya
Title: Principal, CBT Architects
Age: 45
Industry experience: 24 years
His business card says principal at CBT Architects, but you’re just as likely to find Haril Pandya performing with the cover band Red Square at The Burren pub in Somerville as making a presentation to the Boston Civic Design Commission. As a member of an earlier ethnic fusion band, Karyshma, Pandya toured nationally, performing for audiences including Hillary Clinton and Deepak Chopra. In his day job, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute graduate works with developers such as The Davis Cos., Spear Street Capital and Anchor Line Partners on updating suburban office parks with outdoor amenities, activated common areas and even a sheep sculpture as a callback to a Watertown property’s industrial heritage.
Q: First of all, tell me about your filmmaking career. It’s not every day I interview someone with an IMDB profile.
A: I had the bug back in 2006. It turned out I wanted to make a feature film, but it didn’t pan out so I ended up making a 27-minute short. I said, “Holy cow, I really like doing this.” It escalated into making some corporate videos in our office. (Another for a private client) was a rap video for a guy who was doing it for a college application.
Q: Did it work?
A: It got him into Brown, or at least I’d like to think so.
Q: Are you seeing an uptick in suburban repositioning projects as industrial properties are converted into multifamily and open-format office space?
A: I think there’s a fair amount of that. Folks want to come into Boston and the suburbs and really try to capitalize on value-add projects. Folks like Anchor Line Partners know the market very well. They ventured out and found some opportunities in the suburbs. They found a very underutilized postal distribution facility (at 200 Smith St. in Waltham) that’s under construction, and are turning that into tech office space.
Q: Were there challenges redesigning the postal facility at 200 Smith St. for offices?
A: It’s such a giant building. It’s similar to converting from a warehouse. This one had great bones because it was used for loading and heavy equipment. There must have been 16 loading bays that had large garage doors on them and they became these little terraces for the office users. In the middle of the building, we’re creating an open-air courtyard. We demolished the roof and created a new envelope and walls, and a mezzanine within the building. The courtyard is about 60,000 square feet and we added that same leasable area into the building. We laid out pavers in the courtyard in a bar code homage to the post office.
Q: What was the vision for The Davis Cos.’ Center at Corporate Drive in Burlington?
A: That one is interesting. There were four buildings that lined a cul-de-sac. 25 Corporate Drive was the oldest building of that four. It wasn’t leasing as well. The thought was: why not make the building that’s the most challenged as the destination? We took half of the ground plane and lobby and redid the café, moved one of the tenants on the ground floor and turned it into amenity space. We added a fitness center, café seating and events space for an all-hands meeting. It’s very flexible from that perspective. Every door (at 25 Corporate Drive) opens to a courtyard.
Q: What was Spear Street Capital’s strategy for updating Riverworks in Watertown?
A: When we first walked in, they had charts in the corridor of sheep and what type of wool they used (when it was the Aetna woolen mill). We really didn’t like the sheep stuff. The funny thing is we ended up coming full circle and celebrating the sheep as an icon. Now that clip art-looking sheep is the brand mark. We saw the sheep sculptures that were floating in Fort Point Channel and they gave one to us and we put it in the lobby.
Q: What’s the next wrinkle in suburban amenities?
A: I always use The District in Burlington as an interesting one. All that retail was there and they’re leveraging that with the office space to create a destination. That and well-being as part of the workplace is a big component in the suburbs. A lot of the suburban buildings are on acres and acres of land. How do you make that site work for you? The food choices and fitness choices are taking over. They’re not just checking the box.
Pandya’s Top Five Hobbies:
- Making creative short films
- Painting and drawing
- Cooking, especially foods of ethnicity
- Playing live for audiences
- Inventing new craft bourbon recipes
