Real Estate, Public School Building Booms Fuel Growth Among Architects
A still-respectable local real estate market boosted Orange County’s biggest architectural firms for the past year, yielding them respectable growth in both billings and employment.
The 30 firms on this year’s Business Journal list reported a combined $257.3 million in architectural billings for the 12 months ended June 30,11% more than they billed in the prior period.
The firms grew architectural staff by 10% to 504 architects, while growing total employment 3% to 1,862.
In all, 21 firms on this year’s list saw increases in billings, three had no change and six had declines. Similarly, 17 firms added staff, three had no change and 10 decreased their staff rosters.
Irvine-based LPA Inc. again grabbed the No. 1 slot with list-leading billings of $30.8 million,a 25% increase from its previous $24.6 million.
LPA president Dan Heinfeld attributed the company’s strong growth to the firm’s diverse client base, which includes the huge K-12 school market.
“We’re still doing K-12 schools, but also community centers and office buildings,” said Heinfeld. “That’s enabled us to follow the market and has been really instrumental in allowing us to grow.”
The firm is working on the K-12 market throughout the state. The rules and regulations for K-12 schools are all administered from Sacramento and they pertain to any school within the state, and that includes design specifications.
“And with the sixth-biggest economy in the world, California has a lot of K-12 schools,” Heinfeld said. “So that sector give us some real staying power.”
The biggest percentage jump in billings came from previously unranked Alameda-based MBH Architects, which has an office in Newport Beach. MBH saw a hefty billings increase of 124% to $9.2 million in the 12-month period.
Another huge gain was posted by Newport Beach-based tBP/Architecture, which grew billings 67% from the previous year, to $8.5 million.
Like LPA, the company depends heavily on the public education sector for contracts. TBP earns about 90% of its billings through school contracts with institutions like Vanguard University as well as Northwood High School in Irvine.
“Schools are the hot button right now,we’ve gotten a ton of new work,” said Jay Malone, tBP’s director of finance.
Malone said tBP hasn’t yet felt the effects of the economic slowdown, but that the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks could change things for the company.
“Because of the tragedy right now and the way things are running in New York, I think people are less likely to vote in more school bonds in the future,” Malone said. “And that could hurt the school construction business.”
Other firms with billings growth in excess of 20% were: No. 5 KTGY Group Inc. in Irvine, 33%; No. 15 Architects Orange in Orange, 33%; and No. 18 Carlile Coatsworth Architects Inc. in Irvine, 50%.
In employment, the biggest percentage jump was at Carlile Coatsworth, which grew employment 52% to 32.
Much of the growth is the result of the firm hiring the principal and all employees and picking up a couple of the clients from the former Nemnich Architects in Irvine,in effect an unofficial absorption.
“That moved us into a few new areas of practice including sports clubs and auto dealerships,” said company vice president Calvin Coatsworth. “Our industrial segment also grew considerably.”
Coatsworth projects include a community center with support buildings at Shady Canyon in South County as well as the remodeling of St. Juliana School in Fullerton.
The only other firm that grew its staff by more than 30% was the Newport Beach office of No. 4 Honolulu-based Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, up 31%.
The biggest percentage drop in billings was at No. 22 Cleveland-based Austin Co., which has an Irvine office. Austin experienced a 50% decline in billings here, which president Raj Gopalan attributed to the economic slowdown hitting the manufacturing sector,which makes up a big portion of the company’s business,especially hard.
Dropping from the list this year: Newport Beach-based Stoutenborough Inc.; the Irvine office of St. Louis, Mo.-based Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum; Irvine-based Thomas P. Cox Architects Inc.; Laguna Beach-based Teller Manok Architects Inc.; and the Irvine office of Pasadena-based MCG Architecture. n
