New Office Building Amenity? A Chapel
Office landlords are always looking for the next hot amenity. When those amenities can take up otherwise unappealing space within a building, all the better.
Hartman Income REIT has renovated space at one of its properties, Three Forest Plaza in Dallas, to create an atypical amenity: a chapel.
“The chapel is something that we have wanted to implement in our buildings for quite some time now," Hartman CEO Al Hartman said. "We want to give our tenants and employees a safe place to be with God.”
The space now occupied by the chapel was originally a suite that was difficult to lease due to its small square footage.
“The layout of the suite was set up perfectly for a chapel: long, narrow and two big windows at the end,” Hartman Construction Asset Management Analyst Gwen Pham said.
Pham worked with Construction Assistant Jacob Magdeleno, Building Engineer Mike Alamanza and Property Manager Warren LeGrow, along with two former Hartman employees, Luisa Banos and Nate Welty, to create a plan and budget for the space.
The furniture for the previous make-ready suite was removed and replaced with new furniture, decorations and lights. The chapel is open to all building tenants, and even with a hiccup in electricity and a surprise need to replace the ceiling tiles, the whole process was easy on the budget.
"Even the chairs were free!" Pham said.
