AIA New Orleans
A Chapter of The American Institute of Architects
1000 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, LA. 70130
504.525.8320
Date:
April 5, 2012
Location:
AIA New Orleans Center for Design
1000 St. Charles Avenue
Attendance:
W. Ray Manning
Brett Petry
Marcel Wisznia
Ron Martinez
Mark Baum
Paula Peer
John Campo
Kevin Morris
Jenny West
Melissa Urcan
Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order by Mr. Manning @ 5:30 pm. A quorum was present.
President
President-Elect
Past President
Vice President
Secretary
Treasurer
AIA Louisiana Delegate
AIA Louisiana Delegate
Associate Director
Executive Director
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Discussion Items:
1.
2.
3.
4.
March Meeting Minutes were accepted.
Ms. Urcan gave the Executive Director's report. (see attached)
a. Highlights:
i. Board Member Renewals - Conduct a calling campaign
ii. Outreach Program
iii. Associates Events - Ms. West
1. One ARE seminar held - went well, 40 attendees, $2200 profit
2. Next session in July - Michael Ermon
iv. Mentorship w/ John Campo
v. Lunchtime Learning Program
vi. Design Awards - Raised $50K, 250 persons attendance
1. Comments relative to changes - Mr. Manning - all complimentary and all was
done well, no negative comments, changes and transparency were positive.
vii. Mr. Manning - Since certain budget items exceeded expectations, budget should be good.
Ms. Peer raised concerns regarding membership renewals.
Lease Renewal:
a. Mr. Wisznia introduced Doug Bernard.
b. Meeting held last week by Marcel Wisznia with Keith Bourgious, Owner of Design Center Space.
Mr. Bernard unable to attend. Clause in current lease - lease becomes a triple net lease which
means some operating costs currently built into lease becomes an additional expense such as
condo fees and property taxes. Makes new rent significantly higher.
c. Current rent about $2600/mo. Rent will increase to $3400/mo,, plus condo fees of $750/mo, and
property taxes. Mr. Bourgious was asked to reconsider lease and has allowed 2 weeks to
reconsider. Mr. Bourgious agreed to cover the cost of property taxes. New rent is therefore
$4,150/mo.
d. Detailed discussion ensued.
e. Executive Committee stipulated that no agreement shall be made that requires a guarantee. Mr.
Campo motions authorizing a cap of $495K, 20-year amortization, $100k down, 5% interest, 10
year balloon. Negotiate from 20 year w/ no balloon, $425.
f. Motion passed unanimously.
Old Business:
a. IRS may audit up to 6 years.
b. Audit RFP letters ready for signature
c. HTE - Charles Montgomery negotiating - Mr. Manning - propose to offer half amount claimed with
some sponsorships
d. LASB: Appointment made
e. Jefferson Technical Committee: AIA New Orleans shall communicate that we cannot fill position.
Melissa to prepare letter for Mr. Manning to sign.
f. AIA Medal of Honor (State Recognition): Errol Barron has been nominated
g. Grass Roots Report (Ms. West):
i. Ms. West attended; We don't have a Young Architects Forum in N.O. and would like to
see a chapter established in N.O. Contacted Josh Flowers, Regional YAF Director and
5.
asked to help establish. Needs someone recently licensed to run effort. Suggest a newly
licensed liaison on the executive committee.
New Business:
a. Mr. Manning met w/ Ken Schwartz regarding chairing an FAIA Committee. Organizing a meeting of
FAIA members to help encourage the process to promote FAIA. Asked Allen Eskew to do a DeMystifying FAIA seminar. April 18th meeting. Determine sponsors for nominees.
b. Mr. Wisznia - Next meeting is 2nd Thursday of Jazz Fest. Consider moving meeting to
Wednesday, May 2nd. Moved and seconded that May meeting be moved
c. Ron Martinez: Audit RFQ letter refers to audit committee. Ms. Peer as chair, Mr. Martinez and Mr.
Petry to serve on committee
d. Discussed maintaining a Library at AIA New Orleans to support small firms. Alternate suggestion
to create a virtual library offering resources to small firms at larger firms. AIA New Orleans would
maintain a resource list.
e. Certain DesCours participants have not been paid. Ms. Urcan advises that it is being taken care of
due to resolving receipts. Mr. Martinez requested an accounting of Des Cours and assurance that
all have been paid.
f. Mr. Morris: Member of CSI and "Spec-heads". Have grown and meet once per month and meet at
a host firm. Smaller firms cannot accommodate 15-17 people. Request to use design center up to
4 times per year. Host firm pays for food and drinks. Ms. Urcan stated there would be no cost.
i. Ms. Peer suggested that CSI vendors be encouraged to host lunch and learns at the
design center.
g. Mr. Morris asked how one gets a building included in the monthly tours. Ms. Urcan stated just to let
her know.
h. Ms. Urcan: Suggested creating a listing of available RFPs. Board members should send links to
Ms. Urcan.
i. Mr. Manning: Vincent Smith, N.O. Capital Projects, asked to arrange meeting after Easter.
Schedule Saturday Meeting. Proposed May 26th.
Adjourned
Next Meeting: Wednesday, May 2, 2012
by
Mark Baum, AIA, Secretary
AIA New Orleans Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
Page 2
Executive Director Report April 2012
Organization news:
Membership – The recent cut-off date for members to renew without expiring was March
30th. There is a much higher number than usual of non-renewals, something I have never
seen in my tenure here. The membership has consistently risen every year that I have
been here, and there is a large fall off – nearly 150 members out of 530 – this year. We did
expect some loss due to those that simply joined to attend the conference for free last
year, but overall it seems off. AIA Louisiana and AIA Baton Rouge and I are having a
conference call on Monday to discuss the numbers, as it is a statewide issue – and not
just ours. There appears to be overall discrepancy, which we hope is also related to
database issues – although national claims to be current. We will conduct a calling
campaign and otherwise to try to retain our membership numbers. There appears to be
large sections of firms that have not yet registered, and hopefully this will account for much
of the discrepancy. I will keep the board updated on this important issue, and potentially
recruit help to reach out to firm leaders to discuss membership.
Outreach – We are currently seeking projects for our outreach program, one we hope to
continue annually and also provide a funding source for our outreach events. Essentially
the goal is to do a similar annual project like our Legacy project during last year’s
convention – which included 35 local architects from a variety of firms to design markers
for the evacuation spots around the city. We are reaching out to a number of non-profits in
the region to identify one that has a project that is in its early stages. Clearly this program
does not intend to take work away from paying architects, but to provide a planning and
design exercise for the non-profit, which in turn will assist them with fundraising and future
work with an architect. In the future we plan to organize this program as an application
process with qualifications. If the board has any ideas of worthy non-profits for this
endeavor please forward them to me, or our Chair, Wayne Troyer.
The CSDC is finally re-reviewing our proposal and revised budget to present at their next
board meeting. Fingers crossed we will be close to some finality in the coming two
months, which will allow us to move full steam ahead on the project in partnership with the
DDD and Architecture for Humanity. I have previously spoken to the details and impact of
this program, but please let me know if you would like to be further involved and/or serve
on this sub-committee which will be finalized and pushed forward once funding is secured.
Rethinkers Benefit – We held our third benefit for the Rethinkers in our Center last night,
April 4. It was a nice attended event, and we assisted them in raising $3000 for their
architecture program. It is overall a great partnership and use of our Center.
NOMA Pipeline – We also hosted NOMA for their pipeline program which is a mentorship
program. It too was well attended, with a number of people I had not met before. We will
continue to partner and host such events here. Aos sponsored the wine for this event.
Upcoming and Recently Past Events & Activities Highlights:
Sustainability Series – USGBC is leading the series this month, and May will be our
responsibility. At the moment we are looking at advanced/upcoming green technology in
the office, potentially to be co-presented with Sony.
Building Tours – our next tour will be held on Thursday, April 19th of the Rosa F. Keller
library by Eskew+Dumez+Ripple. Ryan Gootee is sponsoring, and we are seeking one
more. We expect this to be a popular tour. We are looking for other buildings for the
coming months, so please do forward ideas on.
Lunchtime Learning –We are still currently looking for companies to partner with for
this effort. If you have companies coming to you to present lunchtime learning
programs, please suggest that they also reach out to AIA New Orleans to present to
our full membership. At the very least, please pass along the contact names. These are
great potential Professional Affiliate members for our organization.
Associates Events – We just finished the first of three ARE seminars, being the three-day
structures seminar with David Thaddeus. Aside from a few technical issues with the
sound that is being investigated for future seminars, it went off very well. Overall this
event brought in $13,250, with a net profit of $2200, which is fantastic. We will certainly
have no issues meeting our budget goals for the ARE Associate events this year as we did
the past two years. We have finalized the first Mentor dinner for 2012 on April 11 with
John Campo. AIAS is also promoting their Mentor Dinner, which is now scheduled for
Tuesday, March 7. We encourage our board to support this initiative! July will bring a
building systems exam prep, and September will bring a fast course week-long ARE
session that includes information for all of the test sections. Do please share this
information with your interns.
Design Awards – The design awards were a great success, with the largest audience
attendance to date – being a total of 267 registrants, with the final actual number of about
250. We also raised the most amount of money of any year – thanks largely in part to Billy
Sizeler who did a fantastic job of assisting with fundraising. We raised a total of $49,875
for this event. This is nearly $10,000 over our budgetary goal of $40,000, which is
fantastic.
Overall, it was a very nice event – one that ended it early (which all seemed to appreciate!)
and I heard nothing but positive feedback from the event.
Crawfish Boil – we will be holding our 6th annual crawfish boil on Saturday, April 21, at
our Center. We hope you invite your firm to come out and join us – and see the Center be
used in a new way!
Partner Events –
Parallels Lecture Series - Our next Parallels event, held in partnership with Design
Within Reach, IIDA, and AIGA, is tentatively scheduled for May. We are still finalizing the
program.
Tulane Thesis Show– On May 2nd Tulane will be holding its annual graduate thesis show.
Over the past few years we have also combined this with a firm crawl just prior to the
event – we are working with Tulane AIAS to see if this will happen again this year. More
to follow.
Density in Downtown – We are partnering with ULI to present a half-day workshop about
Density and Downtown – including designers, developers, DDD, city officials and other
stakeholders to discuss the overall status of development. This program will now be held
Friday, May 4. We are finalizing the program to get up on our website and out to our
members directly.
Industry Happy Hour – We have held two happy hours with CREW, ULI, IREM, CCIM,
NOMAR, and CID. Ours was held at Bellocq, a new bar next to our Center, in the hopes
to also highlight our Center to these organizations and members. Ours was quite popular,
with many members of all organizations in attendance. We also met with the owner of
Bellocq to discuss long range partnerships, and other activities that might occur on the
circle. He is very interested in engaging the circle and trying to do events that draw people
to our area – something that would be great for us too!
We are also partnering with CMAA to do a separate industry happy hour – also at Bellocq
– scheduled for April 24. We partnered with CMAA for the golf tournament, and they are
interested in continuing our relationship with them throughout the year.
Special Events/InitiativesTours – We held our Downtown walking tour two weeks ago, led by Marcel Wisznia. The
event was nicely attended with 15 people – and it was very informative. The following
months include a tour coinciding with our year-long celebration of Sam Wilson 100th
birthday, featuring two of his walking tours (provided to us from Louisiana Landmarks) with
a contemporary twist in April, a tour of the new theaters in the theater district in May, and a
Modern Homes tour in June. We are planning to hold our Contemporary Homes &
Cocktails tours this November, and have enlisted Lee Ledbetter to help with the planning
for this event. We did meet with Ann Tuneman, the director of Tales of the Cocktail, to
determine ways to partner (which at this point appear to be mainly sharing of contacts,
although she loved the idea). It is a nice tie in, one that we hope will be a success for this
new program, one we hope to be an annual affair that will grow into a prominent
fundraising event for our chapter.
Beyond Sustainability Issues Conference – With the leadership of our Sustainable
Design Committee Co-Chairs Prisca Weems and Dan Weiner, we are still in the planning
stages for this conference. It is moving towards the direction similar to our Design Awards
theme, Beyond Sustainable Design, with some future thinking, but also including practical
solutions with real life case studies for our region – hot and humid climates. We have
pushed this event back to the fall, as we were able to get a partnership with Tulane to
cover half of the costs to bring in Bill Reed who will be our keynote speaker– and we have
moved to the one-day, all-day format. More information to follow on this soon.
Exhibitions – We are currently planning an exhibition of the massive amount of work
being done Waggonner & Ball for Dutch Dialogues. There was a smaller exhibition years
ago at the CAC, and we would like to honor this massive exercise with an exhibit held in
our space. Following this, we aim to hold an exhibition in partnership with ULI on
transportation in the city, as well as an exhibit of our summer design assistance program,
and then DesCours. We aim to hold five exhibits this year.