Negotiating Functional Elevator Design for NYC Skyscrapers | Rick Sayah
In this episode, I interviewed Rick Sayah, the senior vice president of VDA, a New York elevator consulting company. We discussed the process of making an elevator design functional for high-rise buildings, how building standards can vary internationally, and some interesting observations on how human behavior affects transportation. I also asked Rick to share his advice for the next generation of elevator professionals.
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Transcript:
Rick Sayah (00:00)
Of course, the technical complexity of a hundred story tower is going to be light years beyond, but you also have a team of probably
100, 200 engineers and coming together to make that elevator happen versus, a private residence elevator. You’re talking to, a penthouse kind of just know that they want an elevator, but they don’t want it to make any noise. They don’t want to take up any space. They don’t want it to cost anything.
Matt Allred (00:13)
Right.
Sure.
Rick Sayah (00:26)
The challenges vary a lot, but ultimately at end of the day, no one wants to spend any money. No one wants this thing to inconvenience them, but you need to negotiate and let them understand, we’ll get you the best elevator we can to fit your needs.
Matt Allred (00:42)
Hello and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast brought to you by the Allred Group. I’m your host, Matt
Matt Allred (00:49)
Does your workforce need a lift? At the Allred Group, we are committed to connecting your company with top talent that matches your need. Give us a call at 404-890-0445.
Matt Allred (01:03)
In this episode, I interviewed Rick Sayah, Senior Vice President of VDA, an international elevator consulting company based in New York City. We discussed the process of making an elevator high-rise building standards can and some interesting observations on how human transportation. I also asked Rick to share his the next generation of elevator professionals.
Matt Allred (01:28)
Rick, welcome to the show.
Rick Sayah (01:30)
Thank you, Matt. Thanks for having me.
Matt Allred (01:32)
pleased to have you. I appreciate it. It was great meeting you last fall at the NAEC Expo. And to be able to having these conversations is a lot of fun. So I obviously have lots of questions for you. And you mentioned that elevators weren’t really part of your original career plan. And so just, can you tell the story about how you first discovered the elevator industry and how that internship at VDA changed your trajectory?
Rick Sayah (01:57)
Yeah. So at the time I was a student at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. And
I was going through program there. I had done a couple of different job assignments previously. One was like doing quality control for pharmaceutical supplies. Next stint was working for a small MEP firm doing general drafting and light project work like that.
And then finally, as my third round was coming up, was interviewing with like a pharmaceutical company at the time. And then the opportunity for VDA showed up in the co-op office and just, you know, looked very different elevators and, you know, working with architecture and stuff like that. met the people there and,
could just sense the vibe and the energy of the company at the time. Just a great little, um, small group of people, all very intelligent and, um, excited about the industry. And I guess that infectious excitement just rubbed off and I really wanted to work for VDA. I even, you know, I had a lock on the open job
but just something told me, VDA is where you want to be.
had to fight a little bit and my advisor was like, you should take the sure thing. You know, don’t wait too long for VDA to get back to you. And, luckily I held out and the rest is kind of history.
Matt Allred (03:29)
Yeah, absolutely. I’m curious, what surprised you the most? You’re working on traffic studies and calculations and learning how complex elevator systems really are. What stands out to you as kind of a surprise?
Rick Sayah (03:43)
Well, I guess the real surprise is just you don’t realize how interdisciplinary and you gotta have that like polymath capability. Cause you one moment you’re doing structural calculations, then you’re figuring out horse powers and heat loads and the KW of the motors and trying to coordinate with the feeder sizes all the while talking to the architect who’s got these grand visions about
how the building’s got to look and how to move people through the lobbies. And then you run into the building code stuff and you find out that you’re spending a lot of your time being a lawyer, so it really calls upon you to all your engineering is a discipline where you have to integrate multiple different things in order to build something. So I think it really keyed in on that ability. You know, it was always…
kind of doing all sorts of random things. And I think this really was a great way to bring it all together, because it’s always a new little challenge, a new little nook or cranny that you’re going down to figure something out. It always comes back together. something’s always throwing something new at you here.
Matt Allred (04:50)
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, Well, and it sounds like you kind of caught the vision pretty early on, but at what point or was there a point where you realized, hey, this is where I want to stay, right? This isn’t just a job, but this is a career and I’m going to be here.
Rick Sayah (05:07)
Yeah, I guess it happened fairly early on.
my wife was working kind of in South Jersey and trying to figure out where we were going end up. she had some opportunities down there, but we decided, that coming back up to around VDA and looking at her opportunities up here and, you know,
location of VDA is great because we’re right outside New York City. You know, you’ve got the whole world at your fingertips there and really settled in and made our life around here. I mean, I grew up in Jersey, Jersey born and bred and so was she and our whole families are here. So, it just makes sense. You know, we’re sitting in, the center of the elevator world. We’ve got the greatest projects and,
Nowhere else I’d rather be.
Matt Allred (05:55)
Awesome. Well, you described yourself as like a chief firefighter, you know, when problems arise. And I’m just curious if you could share a story about a time when someone called you because of an elevator situation, maybe on sideways or something was totally unusual you were called in to fix.
Rick Sayah (06:11)
Yeah, but
I mean, I wouldn’t say we’re called on for emergencies too much. That’s one of the benefits of being a consultant is at least you can wait till Monday morning to, chat on the phone. Of course, you know, everyone’s got their water damage issues and stuff where they’re asking for us to check their
Matt Allred (06:22)
Sure.
Rick Sayah (06:30)
but you know, you get into these crazy design issues and, sometimes you get
projects that they might paint themselves into a corner and you have to help them figure it out. there’s lot of zoning issues or design issues, scoping issues around what’s the right elevator to use and how to make that work. Probably one of the coolest projects I did was, the Spice Cave Museum here in New York City on 55th Street and 8th Avenue. It’s actually a moving room and
Before we got involved, the design team had already kind of fixated on this idea of a big, like 70,000 pound, I forget how big it was, it was at least 400 square feet or something of a room. They wanted stage-less elevator system to operate it. stuff like that’s done in Broadway theaters and stuff, but never for public elevators.
Matt Allred (07:13)
Wow. Wow.
Okay.
Rick Sayah (07:24)
trying to figure it out, coordinate with the manufacturer, figure out how we could pull it off. eventually, yeah, you put all the pieces together and turned out to be a successful project.
Matt Allred (07:36)
No, that sounds like a lot of fun. I’ll have to go visit that next time I’m in town. Very cool, very cool. I’m imagining at this point. And you talked about different codes and different projects and you’ve worked on things all around the world, right? So you’ve probably seen some very different laws, rules, codes. we can’t do this here because of that. And it’s like, what?
Rick Sayah (07:37)
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I mean, the codes themselves, you know, are a mishmash. think a lot of other, you know, in the States, the legal environment and everything is such that the codes are much more strictly adhered to and followed when you get into other jurisdictions, other countries, you know, they’re more of a guideline sometimes. you they haven’t really been put through their paces and
Matt Allred (08:17)
Okay.
Hahaha.
Rick Sayah (08:29)
The enforcement structures aren’t quite the same or as robust. But at the same time, that’s where you bring in the international expertise and what you’ve seen around the world. And you’re trying to deliver something that is better than what you might be able to get away with.
Matt Allred (08:45)
Yeah, absolutely. And
you’ve talked about, you know, working on everything from private residential elevators to 100-story towers. And I’m curious what changes when you move from designing a small system to designing elevators for a super tall building.
Rick Sayah (09:00)
in some senses, not a lot, because at the end of the day, you’re dealing with clients and trying to make sure they understand the elevator systems that they’re trying to purchase. Because
Matt Allred (09:12)
Mm-hmm.
Rick Sayah (09:13)
at the beginning of any project, you’re just trying to get it on paper. Of course, the technical complexity of a hundred story tower is going to be light years beyond, but you also have a team of probably
100, 200 engineers and constructors coming together to make that elevator happen versus, you know, a private residence
Matt Allred (09:31)
Right.
Rick Sayah (09:34)
You’re talking to, a penthouse owner on, central park south where they’re not experienced in the business and they kind of just know that they want an elevator, but they don’t want it to make any noise. They don’t want to take up any space. They don’t want it to cost anything. So.
Matt Allred (09:49)
Sure. Right.
Rick Sayah (09:51)
The challenges vary a lot, but ultimately at end of the day, no one wants to spend any money. No one wants this thing to inconvenience them, but you need to negotiate and let them understand, you know, we’ll get you the best elevator we can to fit your needs. And, the general conversation tends to be the same. It’s just the scale of it and, how beautiful it’s going to look on the skyline.
Matt Allred (10:16)
Absolutely.
Yeah. Well, and along with those differences, I you mentioned that lot of modern office buildings now have gyms and coffee bars and amenities that send people kind of around or up or down or, you know, down to the cafeteria. How does that change the way elevator traffic has to be designed?
Rick Sayah (10:34)
Yeah, well, I think, it’s a complication that hasn’t really been fully thought all the way through. Cause I kind of like to remind people that the job of
building developer was to get people through the door up into their seats and they’ll stay there. They might go out to lunch, come back in and then they’ll go out at the end of the day. Now they’re coming in, running up, going down to get a cup of coffee, going back up.
going down to a meeting, going back up to their desk and making many more elevator trips during a day. And a chaotic traffic pattern that all your destination dispatching and cool control systems and genetic algorithms and
aren’t really able to make sense of because it’s just people going about their day doing their thing. Right.
Matt Allred (11:23)
A lot more haphazard as you kind of
add in some amenities. hey, we have a gym on the third floor and a cafeteria down here. yeah, people are just going to, you know, it’s not like a rush hour kind of situation.
Rick Sayah (11:32)
Right.
Yeah, I kind of like to say we’re seeing lunchtime all the time. It’s people are just milling about through the building and enjoying the building, which is great. But it tends to mean we have to kind of redefine what the expectations are around the elevators because, yeah, you could add wall to wall elevators in the building to give everyone, sub 30 second wait times to compensate for that. But that’s not practical. So
Matt Allred (11:37)
You
Rick Sayah (11:59)
trying to find that right balance with the developers and the tenants to find that right balance in the building so that you can have an efficient floor plate that fits all their employees, but reasonable elevator service.
Matt Allred (12:14)
Sure, sure. Well, and as you get bigger buildings, right, and you got, 99 floors and people are trying to get back and forth from the gym and the cafeteria.
Rick Sayah (12:20)
Yeah, that’s,
one of the difficulties we’ve run into
with the availability of air rights and rezoning, you might have a footprint for a building that’s constrained by, you know, its geographic lot size, but it can be a hundred stories tall. And, might look great on paper, but when you think about the 3D aspect of how those elevators move and interact with the building, you can just have a lot of
and traffic in that building to contend with and trying to explain that and understand that and rationalize. Maybe you can’t have the building as tall, we have to tailor it to a specific tenant
understanding what those possibilities are for that footprint.
Matt Allred (13:03)
Yeah, no, it’s fascinating. You said it hasn’t fully been thought out. And what it sounds like is there’s still a lot of development happening. And I’ve even seen in the last 10, 20 years, a lot more mixed use. So this used to be just a mall, but now it’s a mall and it’s apartments and office building and
Rick Sayah (13:20)
you get three or four different uses on the site and, they’re each trying to get into the building from a different direction, but the elevators are all kind of still clustered in the middle, but everyone wants to have their own identity and, so yeah, it’s a difficult jigsaw puzzle trying to fit all those pieces together onto a plan and, some interesting challenges out there.
Matt Allred (13:42)
Sure,
sure. Well, I guess that’s why you get called in as the chief firefighter to kind of think through some of those challenges. like you say, a designer may design something that’s beautiful. Okay, but have you thought about this and what about, you know?
Rick Sayah (13:46)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. None of that is mathematics or engineering per se. It’s helping think through all those aspects and, thinking a little bit outside the box too, because it’s how do these different things interplay? there efficiencies? Like if you stack the lobbies one on top of the other, do you have an ability to, optimize, that layout and, you know, give them each their own separate floor for their identity, stuff like
Matt Allred (14:21)
Right,
right. When you said it’s not mathematics, a lot of it’s just experience, right? You’ve seen it, you’ve experienced it a lot, and so you are able to speak to that. ⁓ And, you know, as we’re talking about, you you could build a whole bank of elevators. Obviously, that’s going to affect the economics of the building. And so I want to see if you can explain how elevator design can determine whether a skyscraper is financially viable.
Rick Sayah (14:30)
Yep.
Right. the biggest concern is they need to be able to sell the space within the building. like we talking about, a plot of land is going to have a certain amount of built area that you can put
Matt Allred (14:53)
Mm-hmm.
Rick Sayah (15:00)
- So every elevator you put into that building is going to subtract away from that area. So you’re trying to strike that balance of what is the right number of elevators to get to the level of service you want.
And then each additional elevator is going to become inefficient. And when you think about it, an elevator is going to be roughly a hundred square feet. if it’s, a thousand dollars per square foot in the building times, you know, all stories in the building, even if it’s a modest building, it’s only 20 stories that’s real money for each elevator. and not to mention the operating costs of that
Matt Allred (15:25)
Nobody floors.
Rick Sayah (15:35)
additional elevator because you’re to have to maintain it and inspect it and all that. trying to find that right balance is tough. But of
from a tenant point of view, they kind of think, oh, I want more elevators because don’t want to wait for an elevator. And, the developer is trying to minimize that. so you’re constantly trying to walk that tightrope, especially we tend to represent both sides. yeah, sometimes.
Matt Allred (15:56)
For sure.
Right.
Right, right, right. I mean, that’s why you do what you do, right? As a consultant, you’re having to kind of, both sides about here and the cons, and you have to decide land ultimately. so I’m curious, you know, over the last 20 years, what are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in how buildings are designed? and how that affects elevators.
Rick Sayah (16:01)
on the same project.
Yeah. Well, I mean, the digital revolution is obviously the biggest change, you know, as, the ability to have, zoom meetings like this is,
a great, ability to, project your power to a project wherever it is. But I think it’s also, a double edged sword where, the ease and ability to meet has kind of accelerated the pace.
Matt Allred (16:38)
Mm-hmm.
Rick Sayah (16:48)
of meetings, the fact that we don’t have to erase lines and redraw and, print on vellum. Now everything’s digital and that you’re able to make changes quickly means that
building owners and clients feel that they can change their minds a lot more frequently. So yeah. Yeah.
Matt Allred (17:08)
It’s just a digital line, right?
Rick Sayah (17:11)
doesn’t cost you anything to go and design four different versions of this building. So,
it’s kind of like a rapid prototyping of, let’s throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks. is great to do, but the pace of that just continues to accelerate and, can be tough to keep up with it. And it puts a lot of demands on, especially a, specialty field like ours where, you know, we don’t have great.
personnel resources, a small industry overall. So when you multiply that by the number of potential job sites or customers out there, giving them each that individual attention when they want lots of
is a great challenge.
Matt Allred (17:52)
For
sure, for sure. Well, and back to the comment I made about experiences, not everybody can just step into that role and know exactly what to do and have the experience. You can’t just manufacture 20 years of experience and say, boom, here you go.
Rick Sayah (18:05)
Now we’re trying where, yeah,
think VDA has done a great job of trying to look at myself, they took a chance on me and, brought me along and it’s hopefully worked out well from everything I can tell. And, now to bring the next generation into the business, we’re bringing on some design engineers and training them up, trying to teach them the ropes of the industry and kind pay it forward.
a nice little ladder for them to climb where they can be the next great consultants in the industry.
Matt Allred (18:38)
Yeah, and I can only imagine you feel a little bit of a pinch as baby boomers retire and lot of firms like the consulting firms were built around industry veterans that spent 40, 50 years or more maybe in the consulting arena and as they retire out. Do you feel and see that knowledge gap as experts retire and you’re developing the next generation?
Rick Sayah (19:02)
Absolutely. I mean, it’s not just on the consulting side,
in the elevator companies, great minds, those little tinkerers who might be hiding in the basement, those little gurus who know elevators inside and out. they’re getting older and they’re not being replaced. we got to watch out as an industry that we don’t lose that talent we make sure we’re
passing the torch on to the next generation and bringing them along because, it’s a complex industry. And as we talked about, there’s lots of little nooks and crannies of info that you need to know in order to be successful and to keep these projects running well. And,
you know, if we’re not careful, that talent’s going to move on and we’re going to be left holding the bag.
Matt Allred (19:47)
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Which leads me to my next question, which, you know, if there’s a young engineer or mechanic listening to this they’re in the industry, maybe they’re thinking about getting in the industry or getting into consulting one day, what advice would you give them?
Rick Sayah (20:00)
Yeah, I’d say, ask lots of questions. I think the industry is full of lots
generous minds who are willing to share their stories and you everything they know, and they’re happy to do so. don’t be afraid about stepping outside of your comfort zone and trying something new. Like I said, you you might be very mechanically inclined, can adjust the rollers and do all the stuff in the shaft and
run the rails, you also got to be able to handle the control technologies that are going on. abreast of everything happening in computers because it’s all coming back to us as to what’s happening inside the elevator. And you got to constantly reinvent yourself and see what’s coming down the pipeline. So,
you know, don’t be afraid and don’t get stuck in your rut.
Matt Allred (20:48)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I’m sure they feel that, you know, just like I said, with Baby Boomers retiring and, you can’t just manufacture all those years of experience. So there’s probably a bit of pressure to ramp up quickly, ask lots of questions, read the code books, you know, try to drink out of that fire hose just as fast as you can.
Rick Sayah (21:05)
Yeah, but that’s kind of was my ideal at VDA. I had great mentors all around John Van Dusen, Ahmet Tenyari, Beckman, Stack, you all these great guys who more than willing to, coach me through any questions I had and, just looking over their shoulders, seeing what they were working on and, figuring out what they did. And then,
regurgitating it and making it my own eventually.
Matt Allred (21:30)
Sure, sure. Well, at some point it has to become your own, right? You have use that knowledge and maybe even trip over your own toes and, whoops, I guess that wasn’t quite the right thing. Maybe we need do this instead, right? That’s how I learn. Very cool. So the last question I have for you, when you walk into a building today, maybe it’s hotel, office, tower, airport,
What do you find yourself thinking about in regards to the elevators and what is it you’re looking for?
Rick Sayah (21:55)
obviously being an elevator geek, you’re always kind of watching and just,
checking the operation, especially seeing how people interact with the elevators. That’s probably the most interesting bit, especially when you walk into a building with destination dispatch, seeing how people interact with that.
you’ll see someone on their cell phone and they might not realize the elevators arrived and how that impacts the elevator traffic because now they end up holding the door or somebody holds the door for them. understand that that has a whole domino effect on general arrangement lobbies
through the buildings, you start to feel that a little
you know, being in the people movement business, you kind of take your subway journeys and everything is a little more of an intellectual experience, or at least you keep yourself from getting too bored by starting to understand how people are moving and, those general patterns of human behavior.
Matt Allred (22:48)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, Rick, anything else you’d like to share before we wrap up today?
Rick Sayah (22:54)
No, I mean, again, just to all the young aspiring elevator technicians and engineers out there, know, be curious and ask lots of questions and respect those mentors out there that are looking to share their knowledge with you.
Matt Allred (23:12)
Perfect. Well, it’s been a pleasure. I appreciate you being on with me today and wish you the very best.
Rick Sayah (23:17)
Thank you, Matt. This has been excellent.
Matt Allred (23:20)
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