Lutron Celebrates New Commercial Experience Center in Manhattan

For almost six decades, Lutron Electronics has been involved in the lighting control industry. Now, as Lutron celebrates its Commercial Experience Center in Manhattan, the company is once again bringing ideas and vitality to lighting and design.

Experience is the operative word at the flagship center, located just off Fifth Avenue at 3 E. 28^th Street in New York’s NoMad neighborhood. At the core of the center is the Lutron HXL approach, a philosophy of human centric lighting that employs four elements of lighting design – natural light, quality light, connection to the outdoors, and adaptive and personalized control — to help people be, work, and feel their best.

The center offers architects, designers, contractors, developers, and building owners an inclusive vision of Lutron lighting and control capabilities.

It is “designed with the customer journey in mind,” says Scott Hanna, executive vice-president.

“The new center provides an immersive experience that reveals how lighting and controls can impact different space types and people’s sense of well-being,” says Hanna. “It gives them opportunities to enhance and foster the human experience.”

The center is designed to inspire and encourage clients and customers to expand the ways they think about lighting design – not just as illumination, but as an amenity for acquiring and retaining talent, attracting guests, and stimulating students and educators.

Customers are invited to experience Lutron’s recent acquisitions; Ketra dynamic smart lighting that mimics daylight indoors and Limelight smart exterior lighting control.

In addition, the center showcases its solutions, including a Quantum system with integrated Sivoia QS, as well as contract roller shades, Palladiom keypads, and the myRoom guestroom solution.

Lutron co-president Ramin Mehrganpour observes that the center puts more of Lutron’s growing portfolio of solutions on display. “We can now highlight more of our comprehensive, innovative product offering,” he says.

The footprint of the center is spacious: at 5,500 square feet, it’s almost twice the size of Lutron’s original Penn Plaza location. Moreover, being in NoMad, just south of Midtown, puts the company in the middle of New York’s tech and design-oriented neighborhood, convenient to a number of architecture, design, and Silicon Alley firms.

Other notable aspects of the center:

• Solutions for a variety of building types. Lutron controls offer distinct benefits to workplace environments, hotels, and educational institutions – all of which are specifically addressed at the new center. Indeed, the space incorporates a complete model hotel suite employing Lutron’s myRoom guestroom control system.

• Dedicated meeting and training spaces for Lutron clients and customers. With New York being a destination city and a hub for international specifiers, Hanna expects a high percentage of visitors to come from outside the U.S.

• A broad landscape of Lutron products. Lutron solutions on display include Ketra, Limelight, myRoom, T-Series tunable white, the Quantum lighting control and energy management system, EcoSystem technology, and Vive wireless controls.

• WELL certification. The center is designed to meet the WELL Building Standard supporting occupant health and wellness in the built environment. WELL dovetails with Lutron’s approach to human centric lighting, Lutron HXL, which promotes comfort, enables enhanced well-being, and fosters engagement.

Mehrganpour believes Lutron customers will gain a fresh view of lighting control.

“I hope our customers see how the benefits of lighting technology and lighting control, as demonstrated in this new center, improve their lives,” he says. “Once you experience an industry-defining innovation like Ketra, as well as true lighting control, you’ll never want to be without it.”

The New York Commercial Experience Center is available to visit by appointment. Other Lutron Experience Centers are located in Coopersburg, Pa.; Plantation, Fla.; Irvine, Calif.; Washington, D.C.; Toronto, Canada; and London, UK. A Residential Experience Center is located in Midtown Manhattan.