Cover Story

A New Breed of Hurricane Protection
Commercial Properties in South Florida are planned for the day after a storm.

by Howard Shingle

“Business as usual” sounds routine, but following a hurricane it becomes an impossibility for far too many companies. By the 2007 hurricane season getting a business up and running again even after a Category 5 hurricane will be much less of a concern for businesses occupying space at Emerald View at Vista Center now under construction where Okeechobee Blvd. meets the Florida Turnpike in West Palm Beach, FL.

    The project is the first of what could be many designed and built by Procacci Development Corp., Boca Raton, FL, as a Class A hurricane-resistant office park. Not only will it meet and exceed Florida’s building codes and requirements as a public shelter, but it also is being designed with the backup power and telephone and data services so necessary for businesses to reopen.

    Company president, Philip J. Procacci, has been in the real estate development business for the past 30 years developing primarily office, and some retail, space throughout Florida. But two years ago, he realized a different approach was needed.

    “After the storms of 2004—Francis, Jeanne and Charlie—we saw the tremendous devastation on the businesses in north Palm Beach County, and with Charley all the way through from the Gulf Coast to Orlando,” Procacci says. “It was really quite amazing to see the damage from those storms and how long these people were out of business and trying to get these businesses rebuilt. I thought there needed to be a better way. We need to start building a different kind of a product to protect these businesses from these types of serious storms.

    “We began to strategize with our architects and engineers about how we can build an elegant Class A office building while still meeting the design criteria that I imposed. What I told them is what we wanted to do is build a Class A office building to the specifications of a public shelter—and that is to be able to withstand winds of a Category 5 hurricane up to 185 mph.”

    Unavoidably, meeting these strict design criteria means increased costs and an increase in rent for those occupying space in the building. Procacci knows, however, that professionals and business owners will understand the added value a building of this nature offers. “If you’ve been through one of these storms, you understand that,” he says, “and when you see your fellow business owners and your competitors in a position where they can’t go back to work and the amount of business that they lose and the impact it has on their employees and their clients, you really see that there is a need and a value that we can deliver with the kind of building that we’re building.

    “We really stepped up the criteria and specifications,” Procacci continues. “What we wanted to do was build a building that would provide people the peace of mind that their businesses are going to be protected and, further, that we can put them back into business the next day.”

SAFE FROM THE TOP DOWN
    Emerald View at Vista Center is being built in multiple phases. When completed, it will include two 73,500-square-foot, four-story buildings. Across the street, there will be another 40,000-square-foot, three-story office building. The first phase began construction late in 2005 with occupancy planned for February 2007.

    But before construction could begin, it had to be planned—and the planning was ambitious from the beginning. “We really started from the top and worked our way down,” Procacci explains. “We went from a structural concrete roof to tilt-wall panels reinforced with steel to withstand the winds of this level of storm (Category 5), then we moved to our windows with large-missile, high-impact glass designed not only to withstand those winds but to withstand the pressures of those winds that could potentially suck the windows right out of the frames. Then we moved down, our entry features are concrete that are beautifully designed that can withstand the winds of storms.

    “Then we said, now that we’ve protected the businesses, how do we get them back in business the next day? What we did was put a generator in there that can run the entire building business as usual with enough fuel to run that building for 14 days. We put that generator in a concrete structure that would protect it and, in addition to that, we decided to build a structure around the air conditioning unit with a stainless steel grate over the top so flying debris wouldn’t get in there and damage the air conditioning. So we really looked at this thing from every angle.”

    Looking at the project from every angle had to include making aesthetic decisions. No one wants work in a bunker. “If you drive by our buildings and you drive by another Class A building, from the street you won’t notice a difference,” Procacci says. “The quality of materials, the quality of steel reinforcement . . . there’s a quality of product that makes up that building that we spent our money on.”

IT’S ON EVERYONE’S MIND
    The Emerald View building is not the only hurricane-resistant project Procacci Development Corp. is working on. In Miami, there’s the Dolphin Commerce Center, 630,000 square feet of professional offices and 110,000 square feet of warehouse condominiums adjacent to the Dolphin Mall. In the future there undoubtedly will be others because hurricane protection is on everyone’s mind and structures such as these are very much needed.

    “What is interesting is that when you think about the office buildings that are in South Florida, 95 percent of us are in office buildings that, quite frankly, can’t be protected,” Procacci says. “We’re in older buildings—buildings that were built before the new hurricane codes—and there’s really no way to board up a two-story, three-story, 10-story office building only days before a storm.

    “We really needed to build a building that would allow tenants, business owners, to have a new breed of hurricane protection plan and that would be that they could just turn the key and go home and protect their families and their homes.

    “What was interesting to me personally was that after the storms of 2004 we kept hearing on radio and seeing in the newspapers that the Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) estimates that at least 25 percent of all businesses that close after a disaster never reopen. It impacts the community. It impacts people in every way.

    “Many businesses now are seeing how important and how costly it is to be out of business for a day, a week or a month,” Procacci says. “They feel that they need to start looking at something different. The two main questions that tenants are asking when they are relocating or outgrowing their space: What kind of hurricane protection is available in the market and do they have backup power and how much? It’s on everybody’s mind.”