![]() They’ve also established offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston in last five years, joining their offices in Phoenix, New York, Hong Kong, and Dubai. The Dallas office has grown from fewer than 300 people to almost 500 in past three years. “We’ve seen really explosive growth in our corporate headquarters, and also in mission critical facilities work, although most of their project work is pretty secretive - they often go by code names even within our office.” “Parkland was a watershed project, and our interiors group had great success with Blue Cross, then Fossil, then State Farm in Richardson and Toyota headquarters in Frisco,” said Lindsay Wilson, Interiors Sector Leader at Corgan. An early notable project was Love Field Airport, and over the years, project types expanded. Corgan, who designed movie theaters and drive-ins across the Southwestern U.S., locations he was able to reach in his own small airplane. The company was started in 1938 by Jack M. The firm has been part of major projects, like the Parkland replacement project and State Farm, has seen big employee growth, and the opening of new offices around the U.S. Photo: Andrew PogueĬorgan is one of the most established and well respected architecture firms in North Texas, and the last five years have brought huge changes. This story has been modified to include Jain Malkin's comments on her firm's closure.The Parkland replacement project was a watershed for Corgan. “During the past year to 18 months, we have experienced a decrease in volume of work,” says Doug Wignall, the president of HDR Architecture, in a statement, and “we can no longer support current staffing levels.” Though it was upheld by the Supreme Court last June, and further solidified by the re-election of its champion, President Obama, in November, the work slowdown took a toll, company sources say. To wit: The lawsuits filed by some states challenging the health care law forced many clients to postpone new projects, to see if the law might be overturned. Yet, HDR admits Obamacare has taken a bite out of its healthcare business, which accounts for about half of its portfolio. They also point out that a new architecture office in Los Angeles, scheduled to open in January, and the imminent acquisition of two overseas firms, will result in a net employment gain in 2013. Company officials note that a handful of employees have been relocated to some of the firm’s 39 other architecture offices, which together employ 1,500 people. offices, in Cincinnati Madison, Wisconsin Sunnyvale and Sacramento, California and Rochester, Minnesota. HDR’s layoffs, meanwhile, came from the shuttering of five U.S. “I’ve learned from my mistakes,” says Bende. ![]() Pacific 33 will also take on retail and hospitality projects. ![]() But, healthcare won’t be his sole focus going forward. Bende has launched a new firm, Pacific 33 Architects, based in San Diego, and he will hire three of those former workers. Some soon-to-be-ex-employees of the firm, whose California-centric portfolio includes the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, will land on their feet. She has decided to retire from the practice at 68, though she will continue to consult and work on other projects. Jain Malkin, who founded the firm in 1972, agrees that there was a slowdown in her business stemming from uncertainty in the industry over the fate of the health care law, but she says she planned to close the firm anyway. “Our company has really felt it tightly in the last six months,” says Joost Bende, a Malkin principal, who added that uncertainty about whether the law would be repealed froze many hospitals’ expansion plans for years. And on November 30, Jain Malkin, which specializes in hospital design and has also been battered by the economy, will lay off all 14 of its employees as its San Diego office closes for good. This past summer and fall, HDR, an Omaha-based global architecture and engineering practice with a large healthcare portfolio, let go 100 people as its hospital commissions slowed, according to company sources.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |