(This headquarters building in San Diego won several desig...)
This headquarters building in San Diego won several design awards for Deems/Lewis and Partners. Erikson was on the Architectural Design Team, and Project Designer for the interiors.
(This Artist Live/Work Studio project in Venice, CA was th...)
This Artist Live/Work Studio project in Venice, CA was the first new construction project of its kind on the West Coast and received a design award. Erikson was the developer and joint-venture architect.
(The Simone Hotel was the first new construction Very Low ...)
The Simone Hotel was the first new construction Very Low Income Single Room Occupancy Hotel in Los Angeles. Erikson obtained a 300% density Bonus and a parking reduction from 150 to 7 cars, the first of their kind in California, and did the initial planning and architecture for this project, which went on to garner a National AIA Design Award.
(Erikson designed and is building this gut rehab project i...)
Erikson designed and is building this gut rehab project in Santa Fe County with his wife, Karina Naumer. Completion of landscaping and out-buildings is expected later this year.
Glenn Erikson works on the integration of architecture, urban economics, planning, ecology and the arts. Working on teams that won 7 design awards, he taught Urban Economics at CUNY for 17 years, obtained planning permits for the first new low-income SRO Hotel in LA, was Conservation Director for FFI, developed several Artist live-work studio projects, was on the boards of FFI, Westbeth Center for the Arts and The World Policy Institute.
Background
Glenn Erikson lives three months of the year on a trout stream in New York's Catskills. He has fly fished for trout and salmon across the US, Canada, Iceland and the UK. He began life in Indianapolis, was raised in Chicago, educated in Tucson and New Orleans, began work in Southern California, then moved on to Charlotte, VT, NYC, Upstate New York, and now resides in Santa Fe. Work has taken him through 20 states and on to Canada and Europe. He's sailed the length of both coasts, from Anchorage to La Paz and the Great Exumas to Newfoundland. The grandson of indigenous Sami from Sweden, his children and grand children now live in NJ and the UK. He's married to Karina Naumer, an educator and potter.
Education
Bachelors in Architecture, University of Arizona, 1974
Master of Science in Real Estate & Finance, University of Arizona, 1981
PhD in Religious & Urban Affairs, Summit University, 2001
Career
Upon completing his masters Erikson worked at the office of Deem/Lewis & Partners in San Diego. He served in a variety of roles, including Project Manager, Interiors Designer and Project Designer, working on 6 award winning projects with the firm. Upon receiving his license, he began work at Subbiondo & Associates, where he was the architect for OrangeGate Plaza, a four building, 600,000 SF office complex where he initiated the first use of both pre- and post-tensioned concrete in one building in the US. He then began work at Center Financial Group in Los Angeles as an Investment Banker in order to be able to fund his first development, Morton Park Apartments. He then joined Alan Goodman and formed Los Angeles Land Company (LALC), where he held the firm’s architecture, real estate and construction licenses and developed 16 shopping centers and mixed use projects in Southern California. In 1989 he had a falling out with Goodman, sold his partnership assets in LALC and began his own firm, the Erikson Partnership (later Erikson Leviton and Associates).
Concerned about the impacts of increasing commuting times on both the environment and lifestyle, he searched for a way to create a building that combined both living and working in one unit, thus eliminating the need for commuting. Unfortunately, this type of use was specifically outlawed in the zoning code. However, the building code allowed Artist-In-Residence units in certain converted industrial buildings downtown, at that time an undesirable residential area. He found a commercial site in Venice with an Artcraft overlay, and approached the Planning department with his idea, and was able to obtain a variance for the first live-work project to be approved in Los Angeles, the Electric ArtBlock. This project also achieved higher rents than apartments in Marina Del Rey or Santa Monica, demonstrating the economic viability of live-work. The success of this first of its kind project encouraged hundreds of additional units to be built, in both Venice and Downtown LA.
Another concern was that the city-wide room count for Single Room Occupancy Hotels for the homeless in Los Angeles had declined from 20,000 in the 1930s to less than 10,000 by 1990, unfortunately in the face of growing demographic pressures. So he began planning work on the Simone Hotel, the first new construction single room occupancy (SRO) hotel for the homeless in Los Angeles. For this project he obtained the largest density bonus the State had up to then allowed, 300%, as well as a parking reduction from over 100 stalls to just seven (the homeless on Skid Row don’t have cars). However, obtaining state financing proved difficult, so he transferred the project to the Skid Row Housing Trust, which completed the project. Again, Erikson’s formula proved successful in initiating hundreds of new SRO units over the coming decades.
Due to the Savings and Loan collapse and resultant recession, Erikson left Los Angeles in 1992. In 1995 went through a divorce and began his PhD program in Summit University. In 1998 he moved to New York, where he worked for Time Equities as a Director of Acquisitions and Development. There he worked on numerous projects, primarily in New York, Seattle and Berlin Germany. In 2004 Erikson and his partner, Bruce Forer (now deceased) formed Integral Design and Development (formerly Rome Management) and purchased a number of commercial and residential rental projects in the Utica, NY metropolitan area. Erikson recently opened Franca's Wine Bar in Upstate NY, and is currently developing the Hillside Terrace Lofts in New Hartford, NY, a 150 unit townhouse/apartment complex.
During his career, Erikson took time to climb over a dozen peaks above 9,000 feet, including 3 climbs over 14,000 feet. He has run in three marathons and covered 20 miles a week for over 20 years. He has boated off shore from Anchorage, AK to La Paz, and from the Great Exumas to Newfoundland. He loves to fly fish, maintaining a cabin on a trophy trout section of the Delaware River in NY while he has been on teams that won first, second and third in the annual One Bug contest on that river, and has also fished for trout and salmon in Labrador, Quebec, Iceland and the UK.
Westbeth Center for the Arts, Member, Board of Directors, NY, 2012-2021
World Policy Institute, Trustee, NY, 2017-2020
American Institute of Architects (AIA), Member, 1980-2021
NYCAIA, Finance Committee Member, 2018-2021
AIA, Emeritus Member, 2022-Present
Urban Land Institute, Member, 2015-Present
Interests
Avocations: fly fishing.
Connections
Dr. Erikson is the son of Erik G. Erikson, an electrical engineer who worked on the early warning radar systems for the UK during WWII, then for NORAD while at Bell Labs and later directed Teletype Corporation. He is married to Karina Anne Naumer, a Drama Educator and Potter. They have a son, Erik S. Erikson, a software engineer in New Jersey and a daughter, Annika Liv Erikson who works in London, UK and is the Founder and CEO of Articheck.
• AIA Award of Merit, Trade Service Publications, Corporate Headquarters, Interiors Team Leader, Deems Lewis & Partners.
• AIA Award of Merit, Cordura Publications, Corporate Headquarters, Interiors Team Leader, Deems Lewis & Partners.
• AIA Citation Award, Torrey Pines High School, Architectural Team Member, Deems Lewis & Partners.
• AIA Citation Award, Salk Institute Cancer Research Addition, Architectural Team Member, Deems Lewis & Partners.
• AIA Award of Merit, Motorola Office Building, Architectural Team Member, Deems Lewis & Partners.
• Irving Soboroff Award for Shopping Center Design & Feasibility Analysis, University of Arizona, M.Sc. Project.
• Westside Urban Forum Honorable Mention Award and the Los Angeles Business Council Beautification Award, Mixed-Use Commercial/Residential, Electric ArtBlock, Los Angeles, CA, with Koning Eizenberg Architecture.
• National AIA Honor Award, Simone Hotel, SRO Housing, Los Angeles, CA, Initial Architect/Developer. Koning Eizenberg Architecture and the SRO Housing Corporation completed the work.
• AIA Award of Merit, Trade Service Publications, Corporate Headquarters, Interiors Team Leader, Deems Lewis & Partners.
• AIA Award of Merit, Cordura Publications, Corporate Headquarters, Interiors Team Leader, Deems Lewis & Partners.
• AIA Citation Award, Torrey Pines High School, Architectural Team Member, Deems Lewis & Partners.
• AIA Citation Award, Salk Institute Cancer Research Addition, Architectural Team Member, Deems Lewis & Partners.
• AIA Award of Merit, Motorola Office Building, Architectural Team Member, Deems Lewis & Partners.
• Irving Soboroff Award for Shopping Center Design & Feasibility Analysis, University of Arizona, M.Sc. Project.
• Westside Urban Forum Honorable Mention Award and the Los Angeles Business Council Beautification Award, Mixed-Use Commercial/Residential, Electric ArtBlock, Los Angeles, CA, with Koning Eizenberg Architecture.
• National AIA Honor Award, Simone Hotel, SRO Housing, Los Angeles, CA, Initial Architect/Developer. Koning Eizenberg Architecture and the SRO Housing Corporation completed the work.