Global law firm Fried Frank went on the hunt in 2022 for a building with a private elevator stop and large enough floor plates to accommodate a Midtown annex it simply calls the Conference Center on a single story. Park Tower Group’s 535 Madison Avenue checked both those boxes.
Fried Frank’s headquarters are at the southern tip of Manhattan at One New York Plaza, but it has long had a smaller outpost at the Seagram Building, leasing the space a year after 9/11 to serve as a “business continuity” facility, according to a spokesperson for the firm. It proved to be a propitious decision when, two decades later, the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly gave Fried Frank’s smaller outpost a new raison d’être: making it easier for lawyers to return to the office without traveling downtown.
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Now it has decamped from Park Avenue and headed one block west to a slightly bigger 14,375-square-foot space on the entire 10th floor of 535 Madison, with a mix of small and large meeting rooms spread throughout.
“It’s completely their space. They don’t share it with anyone else,” said James Phillips, founder and managing executive at TPG Architecture, which designed the Conference Center.
That was important since Fried Frank had privacy and comfort top of mind. So TPG drew up a floor plan for the space accordingly. A sliding fluted glass partition separates the entrance lounge from an adjacent conference room, creating a modular space that Fried Frank can open for a cocktail reception or close without compromising privacy. The fluted glass “has some sparkle and lets the light transmit, but you cannot identify who is in the room, nor can you hear the conversation,” Phillips said.
TPG had acoustics in mind in designing the interior walls and doors, which feature tambour wood paneling and double-glazed glass to dampen the sound coming from the rooms.
Small meeting rooms line the perimeter of the Conference Center with camel-colored EvensonBest leather rolling chairs. The rooms are equipped with user-friendly, state-of-the-art video conference technology by Robert Derector Telecommunications and USIS AudioVisual Systems — a priority for Fried Frank since its lawyers are meeting virtually with clients and colleagues all over the globe.
“You want everybody participating in the meeting to have some level of equity, so that the people who are remote feel like they are just as present,” Phillips said.
A boardroom is the largest meeting space the Conference Center offers. When Fried Frank needs to make use of all 34 seats at the large banquet table in this room, the space will more than suffice. Ample space around the perimeter of the table and wide hallways in the rest of the Conference Center allows the firm to host large gatherings when necessary.
And then there’s the warren of 10 windowless, cockpit-size rooms that occupy the middle of the floor. This is an upgrade from the standing-room-only booths Fried Frank offered its lawyers at the Seagram Building. The study carrels at the new Conference Center are actually more like tiny, private offices.
“This is a place for an attorney to spend a couple of hours,” Phillips said. “If an attorney is in between meetings in Midtown, why commute all the way back downtown?”
Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.
