Foreign Born

Foreign Born

architecture by Mark Gordon | Managing Editor

After surviving the paperwork gauntlet, a hip overseas firm is officially open in the U.S. It chose Sarasota for its U.S. headquarters.

Most architects tend to fancy themselves as creative types, but the type of people who work in the Sarasota office of HKR Architects really want to take their creativity to new heights.

"We like sites and projects where the solution isn't that obvious," says Christopher Brown, director of the Sarasota office, the first in the U.S for Dublin, Ireland-based HKR Architects.

Then consider the downtown Sarasota HKR office, which officially opened May 1, a European redux: The company is one of the more established and trendsetting architecture and planning firms overseas, with offices in London, Manchester, Belfast, Dublin and Prague. The firm's European expertise is in general architecture, urban land planning, and more recently, interior architecture and design.

Recent projects outside the U.S. include design planning for a 37-story apartment tower in Belfast, planned as the tallest building in the city. The firm has also worked on some other top projects in Europe, including several noted environmentally friendly developments.

HKR Architects was founded in 1992 and has 250 employees across its six locations. The last two years have seen the company go through a growth spurt, Brown says, as half the offices - the ones in Manchester, Prague and Sarasota - have opened in that time.

The plan is to grow quickly stateside, too. The local office currently has nine architects, with plans to be at 12 by the end of 2007 and as many as 25 by the end of 2008. The company recently moved into a new 3,000-square-foot office in downtown Sarasota in the Rivo on Ringling condo tower. And in addition to the British-born Brown, it recently hired Sarasota-area architect Stephen Panzarino to help manage the growing office. (See related story.)

What's more, Brown, who previously worked in Dubai before moving to Sarasota, says he envisions the local HKR Architects office as a regional firm for U.S.-based projects, not just ones in Greater Sarasota. To wit, Brown recently flew to Atlanta to meet with a potential client on a mixed-use project.

Says Brown: "Our intention is to have a really good balance between local experience and international experience."

Aesthetically pleasing

Back in Florida, there are two big projects fueling HKR's Sarasota office so far. Locally, the architects have a role in Sarasota Bayside, the billion-dollar redevelopment of the former Quay in downtown Sarasota. Irish developer Patrick Kelly and his Irish American Properties plan on building a mixed-use complex made up of 700 condos in three 18-story towers, a 175-room hotel and more than 200,000 square feet of commercial and retail space.

HKR's is actually one of two local architecture firms working on the Bayside project. The other is the Sarasota-based ADP Group, Panzarino's former employer.

HKR is behind many of the internal parts of the project, such as design concepts and actual drawings, while the ADP Group's role is geared more toward guiding the project through the local permitting and planning process.

The partnership is working well, executives at both companies say. "They are a great firm," says ADP Group president Bruce Franklin. "They have a lot of experience internationally in mixed-use projects."

HKR's Sarasota-based staff is also working on a redevelopment of the Sawgrass Marriott Ponte Vedra Beach Resort & Spa, a golf course community on the beaches just east of Jacksonville. The hotel is adjacent to the TPC at Sawgrass golf course, home to an annual pro golf championship event, as well as the PGA Tour's headquarters. The 36-acre, $300 million Sawgrass project is a two-part development including 400 condos, a new facade to an existing hotel and potential retail components.

Brown says HKR's competitive strengths are in its five-pointed strategy, which is where its architects dip into their inner-creative side. Those principles include:

• Efficiency: Brown says the question of "Is this going to maximize the client's profit with respect to his budget?" is foremost in his mind when going after a project. The goal is to combine purpose with the best net/gross and wall/floor rates possible;

• Elegance: The architects develop a 3D concept of the building to make sure it meets client expectations and is both functional and aesthetically pleasing;

• Innovation: The staff attempts to use new or unique concepts as much as possible;

• Placemaking: The architects want to make sure the building concepts work for the area it's in. "Your building should achieve more than just inspiration from its surroundings. We make sure it adds to them - contributing to the quality of the local area," the company says on its Web site.

• Sustainability: Projects are designed to meet both current environmental standards as well as what the architects believe will be the environmental standards of the future.

'A determined company'

Long before working on any of those principles though, HKR's first challenge in Sarasota was to actually open the office - no easy task, it turns out. It was a two-year process, Brown says, one that included thousands of dollars in legal and other fees.

Think Gulf Coast government bureaucracy with a federal flair.

"It's not straightforward for an international firm to come here and open an office," says Brown. "You have to be quite determined as a company that this is what you want to do."

With that process now behind the firm, the next task is nothing new to local entrepreneurs and senior executives: Hiring. "Recruitment is a difficult challenge," says Panzarino. "There aren't enough architects to go around."

The firm looks for architects from both local firms and from colleges nationwide. Brown says he hopes the variety of work the firm does will entice potential hires to come to HKR as opposed to firms in Miami or New York City.

From NYC to Sarasota

In the mid-1980s, Steve Panzarino was getting ready to move out of New York City and head to California, where his fiance was living.

Panzarino had actually gone as far as attending a good-bye dinner in his honor when an architecture colleague asked him if he would be up for working for Michael Graves.

It was one of those career-defining moments: Asking if Panzarino wanted to work for Graves would be akin to asking a young computer programmer if he wanted to work with Bill Gates.

Graves is one of the country's most renowned architects and designers. His architecture projects include nationally known museums and courthouses, while his design efforts have led to more than 1,800 consumer and business products, from teapots to toasters.

Moving to California would have to wait. Panzarino's fiance - now his wife - moved to New York instead.

Panzarino, a New York native, worked for Graves & Associates for 15 years, calling it one of the most exciting times of his career. He rose through the company to become a supervisor on several key projects, including the construction of the NCAA headquarters and Hall of Champions complex in downtown Indianapolis and the U.S. Embassy in South Korea. Other projects Panzarino supervised for Graves ranged from a high-rise bank in Shanghai to an office building in Amsterdam to a small museum in Italy.

Seeking a new challenge - and warmer weather - Panzarino, now 45, moved to Sarasota in 2002 to work for the ADP Group, a local architecture, planning and design firm. Panzarino was named vice president of architecture for the firm, working on a variety of mixed-use development projects, as well as golf courses and country clubs.

And then, late this summer, Panzarino sought another challenge. He took an executive role with HKR Architects, a Dublin, Ireland-based firm that opened an office in downtown Sarasota in May. While Panzarino wasn't actively seeking to leave ADP, he says he thought HKR's long-term growth goals were more aligned with his.

REVIEW SUMMARY

Industry. Architecture

Who. HKR Architects, Sarasota

Key. Dublin, Ireland-based firm recently opened its first U.S. office, in Sarasota.