In a Shrinking Economy. HDA Architects Grows and Takes on New HQ Office Space

by Tracy Ostroff
Contributing Editor

How do you . . . plan for growth?

Summary: With an optimistic view about the future of the economy in general, and for their practice in particular, HDA Architects just moved into larger headquarters, and in the last six months has added another staff member. The firm, which has designed many office buildings along the Highway 40 (I-64) corridor in St. Louis/St Charles County, is taking 7,600 square feet of space in that area and is changing their set-up to an open studio environment. The update correlates with much of their business right now whereby companies are rethinking their business models to bring them into the 21st century and poise them for future growth.

Founded 23 years ago, HDA has designed more than 75 million square feet of office, industrial, distribution, retail, interiors, and health-care space. “We’ve built a niche in the beverage distribution industry where businesses are seeking enhanced branding and greater operational efficiencies through design,” says firm co-founder Jack Holleran, AIA.

HDA has designed more than 70 distribution projects for Anheuser-Busch (now Anheuser-Busch InBev), MillerCoors and others. HDA's Anheuser-Busch building in St. Louis was the first LEED-certified office building in the city.

Mergers and acquisitions also create more opportunities for work as firms reanalyze space based on new needs and staffing. They are busy doing feasibility studies and finding ways to repurpose unoccupied buildings.

The 18-member firm is busy, with a “backlog and a nice list of prospects,” Holleran says of the business he owns with Mark Duitsman, AIA, and which they have nurtured since 1986. Holleran says a good segment of their current work is space planning and upgrading older buildings, some of which haven’t been touched since the 1980s. He says they have both reached out to former clients and old and new contacts have been in touch with them about redesign work.

They use their own office, as they always have, as a business tool. (The building itself was designed by HOK, Holleran notes.) Now, with more formal, as well as informal meeting space, they can demonstrate to perspective clients the way they do business. As the new occupants who face the growing pains of a new working environment, they can also better sympathize with clients who may not have everything up and running—like heat for three days—on Day One.

Growing the practice
The new space helps clients anxious about their own projects see that their architects are poised for growth.

“Our whole focus is not to fear this cycle, but to poise ourselves for growth … to grow our practice from where we’re at, still do quality work, and add new talent as we go.”

Holleran says talent is abundant in his town, where he is seeing about five new résumés a week. “Everyone is going into high gear to reduce costs; we’d rather tighten things up than to let people go,” Holleran notes. Instead, they are taking more time to think about things like the future of the firm and succession planning.

“Although we don’t plan to hire in the immediate future, our new space is more functional and puts us in a position to grow when the economy improves.”