OC’s Biggest Architects See Billings Increase 6%; LPA Tops List
The continuing bubble of a hot economy and related real estate development has kept Orange County’s architectural firms hopping, resulting in an upswing in billings and jobs for OC’s largest firms.
The 30 firms on this year’s list generated a combined $243.6 million in architectural billings for the year ended June 30, a 6% increase from their own collective performance of a year ago.
On the employment front, the firms increased their architectural staff by 3% to 462 architects; company-wide employment grew 4% to 1,792 from 1,715 a year ago.
In all, 18 firms on this year’s list saw increases in billings, nine had no change and four had declines. Similarly, 16 firms added staff, six remained the same and eight shrunk their ranks.
Forty-nine percent of the Orange County billings were posted by the seven largest firms on the list, each of which had more than $11 million in billings.
Several firms pointed to increased demand in the fields of education, healthcare and hospitality as driving forces in their activity level in the past year, with one-third of the 30 firms listing school facilities among their recent projects.
That sector helped drive Irvine-based LPA Inc. to the No. 1 slot, displacing the Irvine firm of McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & Partners Inc., which fell to No. 2. LPA’s list-leading billings were $24.6 million for the period, a 22% increase from its previous $20.1 million.
“For us, the past couple of years have seen a significant increase in K-12 schools,” said Dan Heinfeld, president of Irvine-based LPA Inc.
Heinfeld, whose firm designed the new Sage Hill School at Newport Coast, said he expects the education sector,as well as other public buildings,to remain strong for some time.
“We think there will be a next generation of public buildings,” he said. “As counties and cities grow, there will be more need for that.”
Indeed, institutional buildings account for almost half of architectural billings nationwide, according to the 2000-2002 survey by the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
The biggest percentage jump in billings, however, came at previously unranked GKK Corp., Irvine, which saw a hefty increase of 54% to $13.4 million from just $8.7 million a year ago.
GKK CEO Pratul Kulkami attributed much of the firm’s growth to work on state-mandated seismic upgrades at hospitals that must be completed by 2008.
“We see an eight- to 10-year program for these,” Kulkami said.
Other firms with billings growth in excess of 20% were: No. 28 Hill Partnership Inc. Architects in Newport Beach, 29%; No. 22 Thomas P. Cox Architects Inc., Newport Beach, 26%; No. 12 Carrier Johnson, Irvine, 25%; and No. 9 Gensler, Newport Beach, 23%.
Larry Frapwell, president of newcomer Hill Partnership, said much of that firm’s increase was due to a bigger volume of work for Sunrise Assisted Living facilities and various colleges and universities.
At Gensler,which makes its debut on the list at No. 9,work on a project at the Tustin Air Base and at Disneyland helped the firm boost its billings, according to Vice President Jeff Mayer.
The biggest drop in billings was at No. 3 Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, which saw billings decline 23% to $17 million from $22 million last year. Greg Coghill, vice president and managing director of the Newport Beach headquarters, said the drop reflected the completion of big projects,like the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas,more than a lack of work.
“We’ll do about $25 million this year,” he said.
The firm had more than 100 projects in the works earlier this year and recently landed the contract for a renovation at Torrey Pines in San Diego. It has also added an interior-design department, upped its timeshare business and increased its out-of-state and foreign business.
McLarand Vasquez fell to the No. 2 slot on the list with a 9% decline in billings to $22.7 million from $25 in 1999.
But Carl McLarand, the firm’s president, said the firm has been busy.
“Some other markets are probably stronger than Orange County,” he said, “but LA is weaker. The influx of tech companies here will create more demand.”
The firm recently landed a contract for 1.5 million square feet of office space in Aliso Viejo. It is also working on several projects for Opus West and mixed-use transit developments in Northern California, where the firm does about 40% of its work.
About 30% of the firms on this year’s list do work overseas, the same percentage as in the nationwide AIA survey. Only three,Taylor & Associates, Newport Beach; Thomas P. Cox; and Knitter & Associates, Newport Beach,do work in OC exclusively.
In employment, the biggest percentage jump again was at GKK, which boosted its staff by 80% to 54. The second-biggest growth was at the Irvine office of San Diego-based Carrier Johnson, which upped its numbers 45%, to 32.
Lanie Geldert, director of business development, attributed the growth to a substantial increase in work for educational facilities,particularly UCI.
“We started here three years ago with four employees, and now we’re up to 32,” Geldert said.
Other firms that grew staff numbers by more than 30% were LPA, up 37%; and Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, Irvine, up 36%.
Paul Thometz, senior vice president of HOK’s OC office, said the growth reflected the transfer of more work to Orange County.
“This office started as an outgrowth of the LA office,” he said. “In past years, some of our work was done in conjunction with LA, but now we’re staffing up to handle it more directly here.”
Only two firms saw a drop of more than 20% in employment in the past year,No. 28 MCG Architecture, Irvine; and No. 30 Stoutenborough Inc., Newport Beach.
J. Todd Stoutenborough, president of the Newport Beach firm, said he wrapped up a lot of work last year and reshuffled some staff.
“This was sort of a leveling-off year,” he said. “We’d had growth each year for several years and needed to pause.”
But Stoutenborough said the firm is poised for a “huge amount” of work from now through next year, and just added 1,000 square feet of office space this month to accommodate future growth.
Though only five firms on the list have more than 100 employees now, more are likely to cross that threshold in the next few years if the strong economy continues. All the firms contacted for this story said they were looking for additional people.
“It’s a difficult market,” HOK’s Thometz said. “The unemployment rate is even lower in our industry than county-wide.”
Twenty-six percent of the employees at firms on the list are licensed architects, slightly lower than the 29% national average in the AIA survey.
In addition to GKK, Gensler and Hill Partnership, other newcomers were No. 20 Teller Manok Architects, Laguna Beach; and No. 25 Knitter & Associates.
Dropping from the list this year was Kansas City, Mo.-based HNTB Corp., No. 20 last year, which moved its architectural activity to its LA office. n
