Newest Office Tenant Word: Concierge : More Buildings in L. A. Hire Employee to Provide Services

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your office building order groceries delivered to your home?

Or to leave your dirty laundry with that person in the morning to be picked up, clean, that afternoon?

These and other services are available to increasing numbers of workers in the Los Angeles area as the idea of an office concierge grows.

Ask a telephone operator for the number of the local concierge association, and you’ll likely be asked, “The local what?”

Travelers are more familiar with the concierge found in a fine hotel. But even the hotel concierge is a fairly new concept in the United States, says Marlin Shipley, who is an office concierge.

And because the concierge is a new idea, it is met, he said, with skepticism, which he personally tries to eliminate through education.

At the Century City North Building, where he has been a concierge--the building’s first--for three months, he gives the tenants a sheet of paper titled “What is a concierge?”

It points out that the word is French--translated as “caretaker,” though the Latin meaning is “fellow slave”--and states: “In medieval France, the concierge kept track of titles of distinguished visitors, was entrusted with the castle keys, watched the comings and goings of people, and controlled the drawbridge.”

In modern times, the concierge doesn’t normally control a drawbridge, but Shipley says the rest applies.

His sheet further explains that the concierge “was seen exclusively in the hotel environment until recently.” The function: “to provide guest services, which can literally mean anything.”

Anything? Well, he said with a chuckle, “anything that’s legal.”

‘Get an Elephant’

And that’s true, he noted, whether or not the concierge works in a hotel or an office building.

As Susan Tusson, chief concierge for the Biltmore Hotel as well as the new Biltmore Tower and Biltmore Court, put it: “If a guest or an office tenant asked for an elephant, we would find a way to get an elephant, and there would be no charge.”

The guest or tenant would have to buy or rent the elephant, but the concierge’s services in arranging for the acquisition or rental and delivery would be complimentary, she explained. That’s also true at the Century City North Building and many other office buildings with concierges, although services offered for free vary from building to building.

Tusson hasn’t had a request for an elephant and truly doesn’t expect one, but there’s no telling what the Biltmore office tenants might ask--the offices are still so new. The 24-story tower and other offices were just completed in July, with 30% of the space leased.

Services to Tenants

So, can a busy executive get breakfast in her office? That hasn’t been established yet.

Otherwise, said Tusson, “we offer all of the same services to our office tenants as we do to our hotel guests--secretarial, telexes, loaning out typewriters and dictionaries, sending out and getting back dry cleaning.

“We can assist international visitors because many of my concierges speak several languages.” She has six on her staff and is looking to hire a seventh.

“We can arrange power lunches and theater tickets--here or in New York or even in London.

“We can get a tuxedo rented and bring it back, and we’re working on a program to allow the office tenants to store their clothing, so they can work all night, if they like, and have a change of clothing here the next day.”

Finding Service People

The major difference, from a concierge’s point of view, between a hotel guest and an office worker is “longevity”--length of stay, she said, “and understanding the tenant’s needs.” She plans to establish a separate Rolodex for the office tenants.

A Rolodex-type system is a must for any concierge, it seems, as Nancy St. Cyr, the concierge at the Wilshire-San Vicente Plaza (office building) in Beverly Hills, explained: “My biggest job is to find people we all know and like.”

She says she won’t recommend a tailor, cleaners, grocery store, restaurant or any other service that she hasn’t personally tried. “A concierge can’t just go to a phone book,” she said.

And she suggests services of tenants in her building first--before looking outside. “I’ve opened a lot of the tenants’ eyes about what’s in the building,” she said. “One woman was a tenant in the building for 10 years and didn’t know we have three notaries.”

Recommending and arranging aren’t the only things she does on the job, though.

Plans Monthly Events

“I’m non-stop activity,” she said while answering phones and greeting tenants at the same time.

She is the building’s security person as well as its concierge.

Since becoming the concierge/security person about five months ago, she has planned monthly events--a Red Cross Blood Drive, ice-cream social and fall fashion show.

She produces a monthly newsletter with classified ads that are free to tenants.

She stages a monthly drawing for tenants who have used her services, and whoever’s business card is pulled from a hat can win a dinner and limousine service--all donated, she stresses. Even the events are presented, she said, free of charge as a means of advertising services to the 2,000 people who work in her building.

Typical of other office concierges, St. Cyr gets paid by the building owner--in her case, through a service company. “I get a nice salary so I don’t worry about getting any commissions or tips,” she said. “Saying ‘thank you’ is fine with me. I just get excited doing things for people.”

St. Cyr calls herself “the senior concierge, the one who has been here the longest” in an office-concierge program sponsored by JMB Property Management Co. and Pedus Services International.

Program for a Year

Shipley works for the program, too. The Century City North Building and Wilshire-San Vicente Plaza are both owned by an affiliate of the giant Chicago-based JMB Realty Corp., and Pedus is a West Germany-headquartered company that provides security, housekeeping and--now--concierge services.

Shipley said JMB and Pedus have been developing the concierge program for about a year, and now Pedus is also negotiating contracts with other office developers, although JMB is “their primary client.”

“It’s a trend,” he said, “conceived of as a marketing tool for building developers and managers to maintain and attract tenancy.”

That’s how the idea got started five years ago in Dallas, he said. And the notion apparently still has validity in Los Angeles today.

Joe Guidice, president of Future Communications, came up with the idea as a way, he says, “to make the building go” at 655 S. Hope St. Built for an athletic club that never took occupancy, the structure sat as an unattractive box for about 25 years before Hammerson Property bought it in 1982, he said. Then Hammerson gutted it and fixed it up.

Results Seem Rewarding

“Part still didn’t lease up,” Guidice said. “So we decided to try a concierge.”

Larry Baker has been the concierge there since last November, and the results seem to be rewarding. Now the building is nearly fully leased, and the existing tenants are happier because of Baker’s services, Guidice said.

Asked about his job, Baker, who had never before worked as a concierge, said, “I love it.” He keeps a file listing ticket brokers and restaurants, and he arranges for car washes, shoe shines, and pick up and delivery of the tenants’ laundry.

Despite the trend, even these simple services are still unusual for an office building in downtown Los Angeles, said Bruce Merchant, president of Hammerson Property.