The grand opening of a masterplanned science park in China later this year will be the latest display of MVE Group’s international reach.
The Irvine-based architecture firm, which operates through MVE & Partners, MVE International, and other divisons, is among the largest in the industry in Orange County, with more than $44 million in billings for the year through June. It has 104 employees at its sole location here, including 22 licensed architects.
Two partners and five principals oversee the team in providing design and planning services for various project types, including residential, mixed-use and recreational. The 39-year-old company has a robust portfolio of past and ongoing projects throughout California and a number of other states, as well as in Turkey and South Korea. Overseas projects now account for about 20% of MVE’s business.
Developments of office complexes in some of China’s major industrial regions have helped the firm keep its pipeline full and boost its reputation abroad.
Wuhan First City
MVE’s current projects in China include designs for buildings in Wuhan First City, a software-focused community whose first phase of development spans 2 million square feet and is just about done, with an opening ceremony set for late November. That’s also when developers are expected to break ground on the next phase, a mixed-use campus that totals about 5 million square feet, according to Carl McLarand, founder and chairman of MVE.
“We designed this whole thing,” McLarand said, pointing to renderings of the different phases of Wuhan First City in the conference room at the company’s headquarters at Irvine Concourse.
He put the size of the project into perspective when he likened it to a block of space near John Wayne Airport, bound by major thoroughfares visible from the eighth-floor office.
“This project is the equivalent of Main Street to the 405 Freeway in width, and from MacArthur Boulevard to Jamboree Road in length,” he said. “That gives you a sense of scale.”
Wuhan First City is backed by an investment of nearly $3.3 billion and recently had its first 15 software firms move in.
Yida Group
MVE’s work in China began in earnest when the U.S. market was feeling the squeeze of a nationwide economic recession.
“In 2008, 2009, markets in general were disintegrating everywhere,” McLarand said.
A combination of prudent market analysis and good timing led McLarand to make a trip to China, encouraged by a client who had asked him to go, to discuss a project.
“I stopped at a city called Dalian and met with a company there called Yida Group,” McLarand said. “We made some friends. That was about 2009. We started a relationship with them.”
MVE has designed more than 2 million square feet of office space for Yida’s “Biodiverse Emerging Science Technology City” in Dalian, a seaport city that has long been a center of heavy industry in Northern China but has recently shifted gears in a bid to develop modern, technology-based services industries.
“We have done a lot of work with them,” McLarand said. “And everything is built. It’s not paper architecture. It’s 100% with them so far. We haven’t had anything that got put on the shelf.”
Highlights of MVE’s local portfolio include a pair of apartment communities for Irvine Company—the Village and the Park at the Irvine Spectrum—as well as One Ford Road, a masterplanned residential community of 400 single-family detached homes in Newport Beach. The firm was executive architect and architect of record, in association with Connecticut-based Cesar Pelli & Associates, for the 2002 renovation of the South Coast Repertory Theater in Costa Mesa.
Some of the firm’s credits beyond OC are the Metropolitan Transportation Authority headquarters in Los Angeles and the Reserve, a 480-acre golf course resort community in Indian Wells.
Buys Time
MVE’s list of active projects runs long, with the Meridian condos in Newport Beach and affordable housing projects in Playa Vista. The firm also is keeping busy with several projects in Arizona.
“We have the largest backlog we’ve ever had,” said Rick Emsiek, president and chief operating officer. “We’re busier than we’ve ever been, including 2007. We feel fortunate.”
Fueling MVE’s growth and reputation is the firm’s extensive knowledge and practice with BIM—or building information modeling—technology, according to Emsiek.
It’s a process that allows for more efficient and speedy creation and management of buildings by allowing users to digitally model a structure and its components in 3D from the start of the project.
“We don’t draw lines anymore,” Emsiek said. “People like Carl and I, we still think in terms of lines, whether drawn by hand or on the computer with a mouse. [With BIM], we only model buildings. You can determine what you want that model to be as soon as you’re starting it. So when you include components in that model, you can use those elements well into the future, all the way to facility management 10 years later.”
Caruso
Familiarity with BIM has helped MVE land major projects, including 8500 Burton Way, a luxury residential apartment tower, for Los Angeles-based developer Caruso Affiliated, headed by founder and Chief Executive Rick Caruso.
“When we did this project for Rick Caruso … one of the requirements was that you were fully up on the BIM platform,” Emsiek said, recalling the initial pool of 48 firms that bid on the project.
The number quickly dropped to 12, filtered by the BIM requirement, and MVE won the contract.
MVE recently put together a team of six professionals who are not assigned specific projects but dedicated to advancing the software for the technology, according to Emsiek.
“We’re always trying to evolve the firm forward and find new work types,” he said.
The latest example: MVE announced last week it tapped industry veteran Marios Savopoulos as a principal. Savopoulos has more than 25 years of experience in designing mixed-use communities, including those that combine multifamily, retail, offices, restaurants and entertainment facilities—such as the Americana at Brand in Glendale.
He previously served as senior principal at Perkowitz + Ruth Architects, where he led the firm’s OC studio for about 16 years.
Savapoulos joined the firm shortly after the departure of longtime partner Ernesto Vasquez (see related OC Insider item, page 3).
“He’s going to bring that [large-scale retail] expertise and the ability to attract that client,” Emsiek said. “It’s a new avenue of design opportunities.”
