Sarah McCann of Vocon: 5 Questions

It’s been roughly 39 years since Sarah McCann’s mother, Deb Donley, founded commercial design firm Vocon in Cleveland, but McCann has carved out a spot all to herself in the firm’s New York City office.

As director of Vocon’s Eastern region, McCann is in charge of working with clients such as major New York City office landlords SL Green and Hines and setting the tone for Vocon’s operations and strategic growth in the area in the years ahead.

Since its founding, Vocon has grown to more than 200 employees across three offices in Cleveland, New York City and Chicago. The firm officially opened its Chicago office in October.

The firm’s recent design projects in New York, including its office project at 850 Third Avenue with MdeAS Architects, reflect the post-pandemic trends of balance in the office and a need for a “back to basics” work environment.

McCann spoke with Commercial Observer this week to discuss Vocon’s recent projects in New York City, current design trends in the office space, and how the firm is utilizing artificial intelligence in its work.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Commercial Observer: Your mother founded Vocon almost four decades ago in Cleveland. How have you made a spot for yourself in the company’s New York office, and what are your responsibilities?

Sarah McCann: So I’ve been with Vocon for six years, and I started at Vocon as I was studying at NYU Schack getting my master’s in real estate investment. As I started at Vocon, I really focused more on working with developers and owners across New York. That was kind of my area of expertise, because I was studying real estate investment.

I really was digging in during COVID, in 2020, to all the change that was happening in the office sector when it comes to how people were thinking about repositioning assets, reinvesting in assets, what tenants were looking for coming out of COVID — that was all a big topic.

When I started my career at Vocon, I also came at the business from a slightly different lens, because I have a background in finance and marketing from college. I studied as an undergrad at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce. I’m surrounded by creatives all day. They’re the best people to work with. They handle the design and the technical drawings as part of what we do, but from the strategic side of working with clients and figuring out “What are we doing? What is our budget? What are we willing to invest in an asset?” that’s kind of where I found my niche.

Beyond working with our client base, I also have an operational role firm-wide working with office leadership in New York, Cleveland and now Chicago. We just opened that third office, and it’s really setting the tone for our strategic growth targets for the next five years and our vision for the company. So my role has definitely evolved over the last six years.

It’s really exciting. We’re focused on where we should grow geographically, but also in terms of new market sector expertise. Deepening our relationships with existing clients is really important to us. We have an amazing client base, and they’re our No. 1 priority. Working with them is a strategic priority in my mind. That’s kind of where my focus lies right now, but it’s both client facing, and then I also have an operational component now in the New York office.

How is Vocon planning to grow, specifically in New York? What office trends in New York City have you noticed lately?

We have about 85 people in New York right now, and we’re definitely growing within New York City — the largest real estate market in the world in terms of what we do. So there’s tons of growth opportunities, and we’ve seen a really strong start to 2026. Lots of leasing momentum and lots of new opportunities on the horizon, which is really exciting for our team. And then, you know, our philosophy has always been to follow our clients’ needs. 

And, in terms of geographic growth, we have people across the country that have been able to service our clients across all 50 states. We do work globally, if requested and needed. So we’re always looking out for where our next location could be, but we haven’t landed on where that is yet.

Recently, there is demand for really great space, which is a trend we’ve been seeing for the last few years. But it’s accelerating, and I think people are feeling the crunch on the tenant side to find the best space or position themselves to be in the best space in the next few years, and that might mean actually staying in place. We’re seeing a lot of tenants ask us, “How can we selectively renovate a space we’ve already been in for 10 years and make it feel like new?” 

Return-to-office has also been accelerating, which is exciting, and I think a lot of people are coming to the office less from a mandate standpoint and more from a standpoint of seeing the real benefits of being together, which is translating into different priorities as we space plan. 

As we’re thinking about the strategy behind space for our clients, we’re seeing some of our professional services clients really investing in the client-hosting areas, in their spaces, and that’s really exciting new technology. But, on the flip side, there’s been a lot of focus on just getting the basics right in the workplace — like the desk. There’s been a really big focus on what environment you’re providing each individual and making sure just that basic component works really, really well. 

So we’re seeing really heavy investment on the client-hosting and gathering side, but also just back to basics and making sure that the workspace really works.

What New York City projects have you worked on recently?

I touch a little bit of every project when it comes through the door at Vocon, and then we figure out the right team and the right kind of structure for the project.

I did work on 850 Third Avenue at the beginning stages, which was really exciting. Now that’s in the implementation phase, and we’re rolling that out with MdeAS Architects as well. We do a lot of work in the Hudson Square Properties portfolio. So with Hines, Norges Bank and Trinity Church NYC, and there’s been a lot of great activity in that portfolio lately. That keeps us very busy.

We are working with a new kind of emerging private equity firm that’s moving into a building in Midtown South, and that’s been really exciting to see their growth and some resurgence in that area.

As a firm, we’re really excited by all the momentum we’re seeing at One Madison Avenue. We did the lobby and amended ground-floor amenities in that building with SL Green. We’ve moved tenants into that building now, and we’re just really excited by the success of that project overall.

What is Vocon’s current approach to office design in New York City? Does hybrid work affect design plans?

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution now, that’s our approach. We work really closely in a boutique way with each client to figure out what their needs are. And it used to kind of be a formula. There definitely is so much math and science behind planning for growth now, or the hybrid work environment if you’re sharing desks, but it’s really become very custom to each individual company’s vision and their unique needs.

We’re definitely seeing the typical needs for a good balance of private offices and workstations, particularly in financial services environments. Financial services has really driven our practice, but we’re also really excited to be collaborating with some companies in the insurance space and in the professional services and consulting environments. We’re learning a lot from all those different industries and seeing where best practices from maybe a consulting firm could influence a financial services firm in terms of efficiency.

I think we’re back to — not that we ever were away from it — but there’s a real focus on flexibility and efficiency in our space planning, because it’s hard to plan for growth right now. The economy has kind of been all over the place. Planning for high-count growth is challenging, and we try to build space that can accommodate growth, both up and down. That’s the big trend: flexibility, efficiency and things that really work.

How has Vocon been utilizing AI in its work?

I mean, it’s definitely coming for every industry. But we take a very human-centered approach to AI. Everything we do is driven by the human, and we take a very editorial approach to anything AI generates for us. But we’re partnering deeply with clients, testing new tools, seeing if anything could spark a huge productivity change.

On the rendering side, we’re seeing some really awesome tools come out, but it’s a changing landscape, and a lot of the larger software providers are actually rolling up AI tools into their service offerings. It’s been really great to see.

But I think the key thing when it comes to AI is partnership and buy-in from the client side to make sure they know what we’re doing with their information and data privacy. The partnership model is really important, and testing things together to see if we can find better ways to do things is really important to us.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.