Naples Florida Weekly
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ARCHITECTURE BOOM

Building the future with today’s robust economy



 

THE TIME’S THEY ARE A-CHANGING, WE’VE always known that. The question is, how?

The southwest coast is booming again like it never heard of a recession, and that means men and women are furiously planning, designing and building what residents here will see and use 25 years from now, or more. A significant part of their crammed work schedules stems from a robust economy, but some of it is also the result of catastrophe, in the form of Hurricane Irma.

Those men and women are known as architects, and they react to the boom in very different ways.

“Since Hurricane Irma, all of my colleagues have probably heard from many folks who want assistance in either restoring buildings, or — since they’ll be working on roofs or changing out windows anyway — want the opportunity to do revisions, alterations, etc., etc. So architects may take on a new project, and sandwich in the work,” explained architect Andrea Clark Brown, the owner and namesake of the boutique Naples firm, Andrea Clark Brown Architects, PA.

Chad Terwilliger of Pier 76 Architects recently opened an office in Port Charlotte. COURTESY PHOTO

Chad Terwilliger of Pier 76 Architects recently opened an office in Port Charlotte. COURTESY PHOTO

In some cases such revisions go with zoning changes in Naples, a fact that could ultimately create a sea change in Neapolitan urban design, with an even wider emphasis on residential up and commercial below, she suggests.

Westin, Tarpon Point, designed by Chrisopher Lee Architects. COURTESY PHOTO

Westin, Tarpon Point, designed by Chrisopher Lee Architects. COURTESY PHOTO

The downside of that: Some service businesses are forced out as lease prices race upward, forcing residents of these appealing communities back into their cars for laundry or groceries or maintenance needs, she points out.

Like Ms. Brown, who opened her firm in Naples more than three decades ago, 50 miles up the road in Fort Myers architect Christopher Lee has also chosen not to expand his many-year firm, Christopher J. Lee Architects Inc. simply as a reaction to boom-times in a boomtown.

BROWN

BROWN

Instead, he focuses only on work he and his four-person team want to do. That includes specialized medical-building design and such sparkling new community jewels as the Westin banquet center at Tarpon Point in Cape Coral.

“For a four-person firm to do a job of that magnitude is unusual and speaks well of us — we had to compete against some big firms from outside the area. So the workload (for architects) across the region has grown but we’ve resisted the urge to grow the firm with it. We only take on work we can handle — which put me back into the profession, more hands-on, something I love,” he said.

LEE

LEE

Part of that focus stems from Mr. Lee’s caution; he and the firm, bigger then, lived through the recession. “We had to take some drastic measures, and we did that and stayed the course” — but now he’s much more cautious.

But not everybody is small, or as cautious. Some architectural firms grow with the growth. Architect Damon Romanello, founder and CEO of Studio+, just hired 10 new architects and designers for the company’s headquarters office in Fort Myers. With satellite offices in Tampa and Irvine, Calif., now the integrated architectural and interior design firm with a sister “surfaces” company doing specialty ceilings and floors includes more than 60 employees.

ROMANELLO

ROMANELLO

Mr. Romanello started with eight in 2011.

The expansion has created challenges of its own, including finding skilled trade labor to meet the many on-the-job demands. So instead of subcontracting, which is typical in the field, he brings his own fully employed talent to the jobs. That works. Business has only gotten better.

“Right now there’s a diversity of projects occurring that play to our strong suits,” he explained. Those include hospital clients, a variety of senior-living and independent-living-facility clients, and designing K-through-12 schools. The opportunities come in markets created by a strong economy and the arrival of new residents who will drive up the population of the region from Naples to Port Charlotte to more than 2 million people by or before mid-century, demographers predict.

SHEELEY

SHEELEY

“Am I worried about the future economy or the firm?” he said. “We try to create our future, but as a business owner I’m always worried.”

The competition is coming all the time — well-educated, widely experienced architects and designers hungry for work.

Lotus Architecture, for example, with offices in Naples and Fort Myers, includes 25 “creative and experienced professionals” feted in the March issue of the national Commercial Architecture Magazine, for rebuilding both the inside and outside of the 24-story Campo Felice independent living tower on the Caloosahatchee River in downtown Fort Myers.

“It’s a very sound building, welldesigned, all concrete,” said Michael Sheeley, who partnered his Fort Myers firm with Don Stevenson Design in Naples to form Lotus beginning about 18 months ago. Mr. Sheeley and Mr. Stevenson are copresidents, with offices in Naples and Fort Myers.

“We completely gutted Campo Felice, removed all glass, put in new impact glass, which was a big project in itself. And the proof is in the pudding: It came through Irma without any problems. That’s what quality materials and quality design can do. It turned an old building nobody knew what to do with downtown around 180 degrees” — which in turn offers a massive and robust economic injection to the City of Palms, and its historic downtown.

“We formed Lotus to overcome challenges in this market, and to accommodate a heavy workload. As resoundingly strong as the market is — it’s very competitive, very hot — one of the challenges is finding project managers and CAD people. We’re advertising for them now. And we’re doing thousands of multi-family units: Between the Dunes in Naples, with a giant new clubhouse addition, to luxury family projects in Naples, to workforce housing near downtown Fort Myers and in Cape Coral, we’re busy. It’s a vibrant, strong economy.”

Among the newest arrivals to step into the creation-chamber of a sizeable new future is architect Chad Terwilliger, a Hoosier by birth and upbringing who has opened a new office, Pier 76 Architects, in Port Charlotte.

Mr. Terwilliger followed in his father’s footsteps as an architect, doing custom home designs in the Midwest but earning his first architectural license in the Sunshine State. He spent much of his youth vacationing with his family in Florida, and fell in love with it, he says.

After working with his father, Dick Terwilliger, in Indiana and in Nashville for six years, he has now realized a dream by opening the Florida office of the firm, he says. The firm will concentrate on custom home design, with images at the website, www.pier76architects.com.

“My father is more conservative in his sense of design, and I’m probably the newer, edgier designer,” Mr. Terwilliger said.

He has a lot of experience designing around problems Floridians may face, such as rain or flooding and other natural challenges, he said.

Those problems seem to be increasing in the Midwest, as well as in Florida.

“There are more restrictions on building here than in Indiana,” he noted — “in materials, such as all types of glazing, that might be lighter in color, that don’t attract as much heat, that kind of thing.”

In the end, much of their design is aimed at customer need and customer want, but working architects also have a sense that they’re working for the future, and for the hearts and minds of the people who inhabit it.

“When you think of a hospital or medical facility, you’re going there to transform your state of mind, to transform yourself mentally or physically,” explained Mr. Romanello.

“In education, you’re going there (to a school) to transform your life for the better. And in church work, which we do, you’re seeking a spiritual transformation.”

To do that well and widely requires three things, perhaps: wide experience, deep education and an economic boom. Then the knowledge of fine architects can work to the good.

“Our knowledge,” says Ms. Brown, “supports the making of Architecture of sensibility, sensitivity and delight.”

You probably can’t do better than that. ¦

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