Thriving Despite Recession
Eight-person Memphis firm on track for “best year ever”
by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor
How do you . . . position your practice to, yes, survive, but also prosper during lean times?
Summary: While many design firms are planning layoffs and wondering how they’ll survive the year, Memphis’s Architecture Inc., is expecting to have its best year ever. They have approximately $200 million of work on the boards, thanks to a diverse and flexible practice, and a little common sense, too.
Photo courtesy Architecture, Incorporated.
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Architecture Incorporated was founded in 1992 by David M. Schuermann, AIA, and Joseph P. Hagan, AIA. Originally specializing in adaptive reuse, the firm’s two principals have wide and varying experience with many building types. Over the years, Arch Inc. has converted a tugboat and a horse barn into restaurants and a storage facility into an RCA recording studio. They’ve worked on antebellum mansions, a medical office, and a Montessori school, and transformed a paint factory into a playful and creative office space for an entertainment consulting company.
The importance of being flexible
Joey Hagan believes that this culture of innovation and flexibility bred from adaptive reuse is part of why his firm is so successful now. “Because of our background, we’re able to be pretty versatile as far as adapting to a project type. You want condos? We can do condos. You want it to be a recording studio? We can do that. You want to do a restaurant? Sure, we can do that.” That can-do attitude recently landed them two Hope VI multi-family projects in Memphis. And as you could guess, they didn’t have a great deal of experience with multifamily before, but their creativity and intense focus on making their clients happy landed them the two projects that will total nearly $165 million.
That same spirit of flexibility also helped them keep a job that otherwise would’ve been lost due to the credit crunch. According to Hagan, the firm has been working with a first-time developer who wanted to build a downtown hotel. Arch Inc. had completed the CD phase and was in the bidding phase when the credit markets started drying up. Their client received a call from the lender saying that they no longer were financing hotels, but that if he wanted to build an apartment complex, they would still make the funds available. He agreed, and Arch Inc. quickly retooled the project for an apartment building.
A nimble staff helps, too
Any good boss will tell you that it’s the employees who make the company. Often, that’s mere lip service, but Hagan seems to really mean it. Not only is Arch Inc. still handing out bonuses, but the firm makes it a point of practice to keep the work environment fun.
“We don’t punch a time clock. We don’t have dress codes. We don’t require that you be sitting at your desk at 8:00 a.m.,” Hagan says. “We do a lot of things together. We really are a family.” Case in point, in mid-January, Arch Inc. took their whole office and Hope VI client out for Happy Hour and dinner, a pretty common occurrence, laughs Hagan. “We try to make it a fun place to work and I think it is. That’s always been our philosophy: if you’re not having fun doing it, it’s just really not worth doing. You should do something else.”
However, with that family attitude come family expectations of pitching in and taking on diverse responsibilities. The staff members all wear multiple hats, with some doing graphic design, some creating presentations, and others performing IT functions. That diversity of talent is required of their staff and is a necessity at a small firm, Hagan explains, but it also means that the firm is not “farming out” a lot of work and therefore saving a bundle.
And a dash of good, old-fashioned common sense
In addition, the firm was smart enough to upgrade its technology during good times, so they’re fully up-to-date now that work is harder to come by. They’re using BIM on those projects where it makes sense, but not requiring it on projects where it just doesn’t work well yet.
Carefully watching their expenses and preparing for the worst while expecting the best also helps the small firm stay afloat and keeps them comfortable. Arch Inc. was until recently a 10-person firm, but they lost two employees due to attrition. While Hagan says that they could afford to fill those positions, they’re holding off with the attitude that it’s better to save 8 jobs now than to lose 10 later.
Finally, Arch Inc. “bends over backwards” to provide that all-important client service, an approach that is keeping them flush with cash. The Hope VI projects that they’re currently working on are both large and multi-phased. The developer did not award Arch Inc. the first phase of one of the projects, but after the developer’s relationship with that architect soured, all future phases were awarded to Arch Inc. Because of the effort they put into cultivating that successful relationship, Hagan believes, “we’re probably on track to have our best year ever.” |
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