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Area Architects Face Challenges, but Remain Busy

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A rendering of an ambitious housing project in a demolished strip mall in Manchester, Conn. being designed by Dietz & Company.
Architecture Special Coverage

Weathering Some Uncertainty

A rendering of a project in downtown Pittsfield, one of many housing initiatives in the Dietz & Company portfolio.

A rendering of a project in downtown Pittsfield, one of many housing initiatives in the Dietz & Company portfolio.

 

A rendering of a public safety facility in Taunton designed by Caolo & Bieniek.

A rendering of a public safety facility in Taunton designed by Caolo & Bieniek.

Lee Morrissette was probably looking for some wood to knock on.

In the architecture industry, he explained, there is chatter about things slowing down and work becoming more difficult to attain, and for several reasons. But at the same time, Morrisette, a principal with Springfield-based Dietz & Company Architects, has a different take.

“The architecture industry has been saying that things have been softening for quite a while — billings are down, and new job starts are down, but we’re just not seeing that,” he said, noting that the firm — which recently opened an office in Cambridge, where Morrissette leads a team of four — has a considerable amount of work on the books.

Especially strong is work within the broad housing sector, he added, noting that the critical need for housing of all kinds, but especially the affordable variety, is a statewide problem that is keeping the firm busy.

“We’ve maintained a consistent stream of work,” he said, noting that housing and housing-related projects — from a new community center and administrative office for the Fitchburg Housing Authority to an intriguing 48-unit housing project in downtown Pittsfield, to redevelopment of a demolished shopping plaza in Manchester, Conn. into 232 units of market-rate housing — are dominating the portfolio.

Others we spoke with agreed, at least to some extent, but noted that there are some signs of slowdown and a variety of forces — from rising prices of materials and labor to tariffs to a slower-than-expected pace of decline in interest rates — contributing to a good amount of uncertainty, which is never a good thing within the broad building trades sector.

Still, area firms seem to be maneuvering through this uncertainty, mostly through the diversity of their portfolios, the housing crisis, and the fact that many projects are moving forward in some form, though maybe a little later than planned in some cases.

“While some people have hit pause on projects, there’s more of what I’ll call re-evaluation,” said Curtis Edgin, a principal with Chicopee-based Caolo & Bieniek Architects. “People are saying, ‘is this what we really want to do, or do we want to explore a plan B opportunity?’ We’ve seen a little bit of that, and we’ve been fortunate that there’s always been a plan B.

“The architecture industry has been saying that things have been softening for quite a while — billings are down, and new job starts are down, but we’re just not seeing that.”

“We’ve had another good year, and we have good work in the boards for next year,” he continued, adding, again, that diversity of projects — public, private, large, small, long term and shorter term — has been a real asset for the firm.

Kevin Rothschild, principal with East Longmeadow-based Architecture Environment Life (AEL), agreed, but noted there are some forces that will make 2026 somewhat more challenging. These include the end of several pandemic-related programs to fuel the economy, cutbacks to some public sector programs, and other factors.

“Things are a little harder, a little slower,” he told BusinessWest. “We’re seeing the tail end of funding programs like ARPA and ESSER [Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief] as well as municipal or federal grants that were out there for schools and cities and Green Communities,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot of those programs reach their conclusion. The work that we’re exposed to on those projects has had a good run, and we’re seeing a lot of that closing out.”

For this issue and its focus on architecture, we talked to several area firms about what this bellwether sector is seeing, hearing, and experiencing, and what they’re expecting in the months to come.

 

Drawing Conclusions

Morrissette said it was the housing crunch and ongoing efforts to address it that prompted the Dietz firm to expand with its Cambridge office, a small space in the Cambridge Innovation Center, a co-working facility — a step taken after lessons learned from the pandemic about remote work, virtual meetings, and the ability for teams to work effectively even if they’re not all in the same office at the same time.

“We were finding that the housing authorities, particularly the Cambridge Housing Authority and others that we working with … we had enough work with them, and they kept saying, ‘if you had an office here in the Boston area, it would be a lot easier to work on a continuing basis,’” he recalled. “You don’t have to hear that too many times before taking some action.”

And it is housing that continues to broaden the book of business, he said, adding that the firm is involved with several intriguing projects, including the redevelopment of the corner of Linden and Center streets in Pittsfield’s Downtown Arts District. The initiative calls for 48 units of affordable apartment housing through Low-Income Housing Tax Credits — a 30-unit apartment building and two six-unit townhouses designed for passive house certification, the firm’s first such project.

“While some people have hit pause on projects, there’s more of what I’ll call re-evaluation. People are saying, ‘is this what we really want to do, or do we want to explore a plan B opportunity?’ We’ve seen a little bit of that, and we’ve been fortunate that there’s always been a plan B.”

Dietz is also working on an ambitious project in Manchester, Conn. on the site of a razed shopping center. In addition to the 232 units of market-rate apartment housing, plans call for a clubhouse with a fitness center, outdoor pool, and space for community events, as well as a multi-use recreation trail extension, said Morrissette, adding that the project appeared stalled last fall amid uncertainty and higher interest rates, but quickly got back on track.

“We had done some schematics and design-development drawings, and they said, ‘you know what … hold on, we’ll finish out the space, and we’ll see what happens, and if interest rates start to come down, we’ll contact you,’” he recalled. “It didn’t take much of an interest rate drop before they said, ‘OK, it’s looking good enough; we’re moving in the right direction,’ and they re-engaged and got it going again.”

Meanwhile, the firm, with the help of that Cambridge office, has been able to secure work with several housing authorities, including the one in Fitchburg, in the center of the state, where it is designing a new community center and administrative offices.

A rendering of an ambitious housing project in a demolished strip mall in Manchester, Conn. being designed by Dietz & Company.

A rendering of an ambitious housing project in a demolished strip mall in Manchester, Conn. being designed by Dietz & Company.

“We’ve been successful with quite a fair amount of housing authority work, which has been rooting us nicely in this Cambridge office; it’s been good,” Morrissette said, adding that the firm has work in other realms as well, including municipal — the renovated former Chicopee Library, for example — as well as hospitality, education, and office projects.

 

Growth — by Design

Diverse portfolios are also the key to success for the other firms we spoke with.

Indeed, Caolo & Bieniek has been involved with everything from renovations to the clubhouses at Springfield’s two municipal golf courses, Franconia and Veterans, to the new Barry Elementary School in Chicopee; from work at public colleges, including UMass Amherst and Westfield State University, and the municipal library in Richmond to several public-safety projects. That list also includes early-stage work on what will be one of several proposals for a replacement for the troubled Roderick L. Ireland Courthouse in downtown Springfield.

“Our work varies from very long-term projects, like the Barry Elementary School, to the short-term, ‘the roof is leaking; we need to do something’ projects,” Edgin explained. “And that’s what has kept our lights on through the years; we don’t only depend on public sector money. We do some private work, and we have some good private clients as well. And through the years, they appreciate what we we’ve done for them, and they keep coming back, and that’s how we’ve been fortunate.”

The firm has developed a strong niche in the design of public safety facilities, he went on, adding that it has several in various stages of progress in Lenox, Taunton, and Princeton. And, like most firms, it is garnering work in the broad housing sector.

Edgin said his take on the short term, meaning the next several quarters, is one of cautious optimism as the public and private sectors cope with all those challenges listed above and face decisions about whether to proceed with projects, and how.

Curtis Edgin

Curtis Edgin

“We don’t only depend on public sector money. We do some private work, and we have some good private clients as well.”

As he noted, there is usually a plan B.

Rothschild agreed and said his firm still has considerable work on its plate and in the pipeline, but noted that the winding down of several COVID-related programs will certainly be felt within the industry.

He said his firm secured several ESSER-funded, HVAC-related projects to improve ventilation in schools, especially in Holyoke — work that is coming to an end.

Meanwhile, AEL has also garnered some work — lighting, ceiling, insulation, and other initiatives — via the state’s Green Communities program, which provides grants and technical assistance to municipalities to reduce their energy consumption and costs through energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

“That seems to be ongoing,” he said. “But with national trends in support of different policies, obviously there are question marks moving forward.

“Meanwhile, the national trends and the pulse of federal cuts, the changes the federal policy, tariffs, labor, immigration … we’re seeing direct impacts from all that,” he went on. “We’re seeing the availability of labor slowing, we’re seeing the cost of work going up, we’re seeing the availability of materials challenged — even if it’s uncertainty concerning what might be coming, it has an impact.”

Rothschild mentioned a HUD-funded project involving a local housing authority the firm was involved with to get his points across.

“I think we were 90% through the drawings, and that was stopped because the funding was not secure. I think ultimately it was cut, and that project was put on the shelf,” he said. “We’re seeing the impact of what’s happening on the federal level on the private market and the public side as well.”

On the positive side, there is the strong potential for new work through state law now permitting property owners to build one accessory dwelling unit in an area zoned for single-family homes, he said, adding that area communities are adapting the bylaw, and some are seeing requests for permits to build.

Meanwhile, AEL is still seeing a good amount of work on both sides of the ledger, and some pockets of the economy, including the commercial market, show the confidence needed to move forward with projects.

“Everything from people trying to open a dance studio to a carpet business looking to expand to trucking and warehouse facilities — there’s a diversity of work out there,” he said. “It’s still there, it’s just hard. Financing is a challenge, contracting is a challenge — everything seems to take a little longer, and it’s a little harder to get through the pipeline.”

 

Dietz & Company Architects Values Relationships

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Architecture

Personal Touch

Lee Morrissette says it’s rewarding to see the impact the firm’s completed projects have on the community.

Lee Morrissette says it’s rewarding to see the impact the firm’s completed projects have on the community.

 

As Kerry Dietz planned her transition away from day-to-day leadership of the architecture firm she launched four decades ago, she was on a site visit to one of the firm’s Boston-area projects with Lee Morrissette — now one of the company’s four principals — and he asked her about her vision for the firm after she steps away.

“She said, ‘well, I’ve always envisioned the firm as a place for people to have a career in architecture.’ I thought that was a really interesting perspective,” Morrissette told BusinessWest. “It’s wasn’t ‘we want to build this building’ or ‘we want to get that award or make a lot of money from this particular type of project,’ but rather, ‘we want to be a place for people to have a career, to be part of a community,’ which I think is really rewarding.

“That, for me, has really resonated. Since becoming a principal over the past five years, I’ve realized that, even though I do interviews with clients and try to get new work and take on that competitive process we do for public work — which is great — it’s occurred to me that clients hire architects as people, not really as companies.”

And that’s important, Morrissette added, considering the relationship aspect of this work.

“You get the company, with all the breadth of experience. But you’re really hiring an architect, a person, to work with,” he explained. “The fastest projects barely get done in a year, and the really big, complex ones go three, five, seven, sometimes 10 years. You’re building a long-term relationship with somebody, so it needs to be somebody you can actually work with, someone who has your back. It’s like having a friend with special expertise you can really tap into. Perhaps friend isn’t the right word, but it’s building a relationship.”

Those relationships have grown over the years, and so has the firm, which now boasts a team of 30, completely filling the space in Springfield Union Station it has occupied since 2017. It has also opened a second office in Cambridge.

“Architects don’t build anything; contractors build things. We just provide all of what they need to be able to do that. And over that year of construction, 18 months, whatever it is, it slowly comes to life for us.”

“The bread and butter for our firm has always been affordable public housing, and there are a lot more housing authorities in the eastern part of the state than in the western part of the state, so we found ourselves getting more work in Eastern Massachusetts,” Morrissette said, noting that three team members work at that satellite.

But staff growth isn’t the only goal, he noted. Professional development is critical, as evidenced by the company’s designation, since 2018, as an Emerging Professional Friendly Firm by the New England Components of the American Institute of Architects. That program acknowledges architecture firms that promote the advancement of emerging talent through professional development and personal growth opportunities.

“It’s like a stamp of approval that we have an established professional-development program that includes mentorship and study materials and support of emerging professionals on a regular basis,” he said.

But it’s not just younger team members who are immersed in a culture of learning. Morrissette spent several recent weekends studying for an exam to become a certified passive house consultant, a cutting-edge type of sustainable design that dramatically reduces the amount of energy a building consumes.

“I’ve taken 56 hours of training to do this. And I’m really lucky that I can participate in that lifelong learning, just like the new grads that join our office,” he told BusinessWest. “We’re all learning together, and I think it’s a cool profession to be in. There’s a lot of variety in what we do, and there’s a lot to explore.”

 

Market Diversification

Dietz, like many large, well-established firms, designs projects in a range of sectors, including commercial, education, housing, senior living, hospitality, municipal work, and more.

“It sounds kind of like investment strategy, but it’s very similar. We have our hospitality industry, which is fairly market-driven, and then we have our publicly funded work,” Morrissette said, noting that publicly funded projects tend to land in a few buckets, from schools to housing authorities to municipalities. “They all have different budget cycles and money sources, but we’re working with public money from the very local level all the way to the feds, and that’s a nice balance to have.”

The principals at the firm — architects Morrissette, Jason Newman, and Kevin Riordan and chief financial officer Tina Gloster — regularly strategize on what projects to pursue or types of work to emphasize, and each brings different experiences and expertise.

Dietz & Company designed the new Richard E. Neal Cybersecurity Center of Excellence in Springfield.

Dietz & Company designed the new Richard E. Neal Cybersecurity Center of Excellence in Springfield.

“The business side, for architects, can be challenging. We don’t go to business school; we go to design school. But when you’re a really good designer, you get a lot of work, and you find yourself running a company, and you find yourself having to make business decisions,” Morrissette said.

One of them is Dietz’s continued evolution as a leader in sustainable design, with one recent example being the Wilmington Senior Center, the firm’s first exposed mass timber project.

“Instead of the old timber — huge trees cut into big pieces, like the interior of mill buildings with huge timber frames and brick exteriors — mass timber is when you take a whole bunch of small pieces of wood and glue them together to make either columns or beams or floor blocks or wall blocks,” Morrissette explained.

“It’s a good sustainability story because it’s wood that’s pretty quickly grown because you’re growing little trees instead of big trees. It’s fairly renewable and reasonably fast-growing. It helps manage the forests. It also sequesters carbon into the building.”

But despite the excitement of new designs and industry innovations, the most gratifying part of any project is watching the final product emerge — and the impact it has on clients.

“Architects don’t build anything; contractors build things. We just provide all of what they need to be able to do that. And over that year of construction, 18 months, whatever it is, it slowly comes to life for us,” Morrissette told BusinessWest, using the senior center as an example. “Nothing is more rewarding than walking an owner or a client through a building and saying, ‘over here, remember we talked about what that café was going to be like? This is where the coffee is going to be. This is where that beautiful tile you picked out is going to go.’

“And then you get to the ribbon cutting, and they say, ‘I can’t believe we’re here.’ To see the building full of its occupants — not contractors or architects, but to actually see it full of its occupants, enjoying the space, playing pool in the rec room and doing yoga in the fitness studio and sitting down for a meal — yeah, that’s pretty cool.”

 

Handing It Over

Still president and board chairman of the firm, Dietz can take a lot of pride in the company and culture she has built, which also includes an employee ownership model launched in 2021. Morrissette is proud of the work, too, but it goes deeper than that.

“In truth, there’s something a little bit zen about it. We spend all this time in this building. We argue and collaborate with the contractors and the owners about details and budget. We advocate for it like it’s our baby. And then we just give to the owner — because it’s not our building. You have to get used to giving it up and walking away.

“But it’s very rewarding,” he added. “It is incredibly challenging and nuanced, and I’m always tested, but I’m really lucky that I get to do this on a daily basis.”

Architects Say Project Diversity Is Key to Weathering Challenges

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Aelan Tierney says Kuhn Riddle Architects has long been involved in numerous sectors
Architecture Special Coverage

Drawing on Experience

Aelan Tierney says Kuhn Riddle Architects has long been involved in numerous sectors

Aelan Tierney says Kuhn Riddle Architects has long been involved in numerous sectors so it can nimbly shift when the economy does.

When it comes to thriving in the world of architecture, diversity goes a long way.

“During the pandemic, we were working on a lot of large single-family homes,” said Aelan Tierney, president of Kuhn Riddle Architects in Amherst. “That market seems to have slowed down, but higher education is still probably about 50% of our work.”

At the same time, she said, commercial work has declined a bit in the last couple of years. “I’m not quite sure what it is between the economy or construction costs or interest rates, because they all feed into each other,” she noted. But at the same time, the firm has recently tackled numerous multi-family housing developments, both market-rate and affordable, as communities across Massachusetts continue to face an acute need for more of them.

In short, Kuhn Riddle, like many firms, adapts to what the market is offering, she added. “That has always been our strategy, to do a little bit of everything so that we can shift when the economy shifts.”

The situation is similar at Caolo & Bieniek Architects in Chicopee, where educational and municipal projects — schools, public safety, senior centers, libraries, and the like — continue to provide a healthy pipeline of projects, though Curtis Edgin, the firm’s president, doesn’t expect the flow to remain unchanged forever.

“I’m not quite sure what it is between the economy or construction costs or interest rates, because they all feed into each other.”

“That’s why we’re diversified, working in different sectors. Some of that government money, as a result of the pandemic, has begun to taper off a little bit. But they’re still spending it,” he noted. “We’ve also got some commercial projects — healthcare projects, offices, that type of thing — going on. But probably 70% to 75% of our work is public-sector work, whether it’s housing authorities or other projects.”

Kevin Rothschild-Shea, president of ArchitectureEL in East Longmeadow, said his firm continues to stay busy post-COVID, with a number of multi-family residential projects and a growing niche in municipal work, notably a series of projects in Holyoke.

Specifically, AEL has provided services for the city and its public schools as their on-call architect for the past two years, completing a roof and skylight replacement for the Department of Public Works, a roof and skylight replacement for the City Hall Annex, a roof replacement for the Holyoke Children’s Museum and Volleyball Hall of Fame, heating upgrades for the McMahon VRF, historical renovations on the City Council chambers located at City Hall, and HVAC system replacements in the city’s elementary schools. Most recently, it secured an on-call architect contract for the Holyoke Housing Authority.

Principals (from left) Bert Gardner, Curtis Edgin, and Jim Hanifan say Caolo & Bieniek Architects continues to stay busy in the post-pandemic years.

Principals (Principals (from left) Bert Gardner, Curtis Edgin, and Jim Hanifan say Caolo & Bieniek Architects continues to stay busy in the post-pandemic years.
continues to stay busy in the post-pandemic years.

“Diversity continues to be there for us,” Rothschild-Shea said, noting that his firm has significant experience in accessibility, historic preservation, educational, and commercial design, as well as both private and multi-family residential development. “It’s always been competitive, but we haven’t had any trouble with workflow. Word of mouth continues to be one of the strongest methods of obtaining new work on the commercial side. It’s evolving work, and we continue to respond to an ever-changing climate.”

 

Challenges Persist

What hasn’t changed — though they have eased in some ways — are the challenges architects have felt in recent years from supply-chain issues and higher costs.

“It’s a lot less, but there are some elements — like some particular electrical items — that are still causing delays on projects,” said Jim Hanifan, vice president at Caolo & Bieniek. “If we have a big project, a year-plus, everyone knows what materials have problems and get them ordered the second day of the job. The problem is the smaller ones that are only summer jobs; there’s not enough time. You have to pick the materials that you can get. You can’t wait on certain things, or you’ll never get the job done.”

“We’re educating the end user on how to operate systems. That’s something that’s changed in the last 10 years — as part of the design, we build in the training.”

And these are often critical items, he noted. “You can’t have a police station or a fire station without a generator. That’s the kind of thing you’ve got to plan around. Part of the job now is to make sure you can get the materials and get them on time and get them installed and certified, all within a certain time period.”

Another element regarding equipment is how much more complicated some of it is, particularly in the energy-efficiency realm, Hanifan said, and clients need to take into account both their budget and ease of use.

“If you’re going to spend more money on more efficient and better equipment, how long does it really take to pay for that back, and is it worth it? The other part is maintenance. We’ve had clients that want the most sophisticated, the top of the line of everything, but if you don’t have the staff or the crew to maintain it, it’s a headache; it never will operate or be as efficient as it’s supposed to be. So that’s a factor that should always be considered with those systems.”

Bert Gardner, also a vice president with Caolo & Bieniek, agreed.

“Sometimes it causes confusion. So the challenge is, how do you simplify that for the end user as much as possible, because a lot of places don’t have the staff to troubleshoot when things go wrong. We’re educating the end user on how to operate systems. That’s something that’s changed in the last 10 years — as part of the design, we build in the training. We talk to the owner about what the systems are going to be and who they’ve got available to be trained on the systems and how long are they going to need to train. We write it right into the specs for the lighting controls — plan for two days for you to get your staff up to speed on how the lights work in the building.”

This architect’s rendering from Kuhn Riddle shows a mixed-use project

This architect’s rendering from Kuhn Riddle shows a mixed-use project centered around the historic Hastings building in Amherst, which will include five stories of residential units, helping meet a need for more housing in town.

Tierney said current energy codes are moving the world in a positive direction with respect to reducing energy use and the carbon impact of buildings, but owners, architects, builders, and code officials are all having to learn very quickly how to meet these new code requirements. At Kuhn Riddle, that has led to a recent emphasis on passive-house design and certification, which focuses on dramatic energy-use reduction for space heating and cooling.

“We currently have one certified passive-house consultant and five others training to become passive-house designers,” she told BusinessWest. “We understand the detailing that’s required behind passive-house design and the process you have to get through to get passive-house-certified to meet the energy-code requirements. So that’s an expense that, as designers, we’re taking on in terms of getting our staff certified, but then there are layers of construction costs associated with that as well, and testing that needs to happen. It’s all good; it’s just expensive.”

It’s also one way Kuhn Riddle provides professional-development opportunities to its team, Tierney said.

“I think they appreciate having the opportunity to learn a new skill, and it’s obviously a benefit to us to have that expertise, to be able to say to developers, ‘yes, we have five people who are passive-house-certified consultants, and we can do your projects.’”

More broadly, she went on, “in becoming an architect, you have to go through education, training, and then take exams. We’ve been paying for the study software and materials, and then we also pay for people to take their exams. Anybody coming out of college is in debt from going to school, so that additional expense of having to pay for study materials and exams, we just want to take that pressure away. And as people get licensed, that’s a benefit to the firm.”

 

Opportunity Knocks

The firms we spoke with have all had success bringing in young talent, even though they acknowledged it’s not the easiest field.

“It’s hard work. There are more lucrative industries to get into, given the amount of work versus the salary,” Edgin said. “So what do we do to attract them? We give you a lot of opportunity, I’ll say that. You’re not pigeonholed into doing just one little task. Continuing education is important to help folks grow and reach their goals. We support that and encourage that.”

Angela Johnson

Angela Johnson

“Someone going into architecture doesn’t necessarily have to choose a certain role. You can be in all kinds of different places within the field.”

Angela Johnson, who went to school for architecture and is now the firm’s marketing assistant, agrees.

“I’ve been here almost three years now, and I’ve definitely learned a lot. Seeing different sides of how it all connects is really eye-opening,” she said. “Someone going into architecture doesn’t necessarily have to choose a certain role. You can be in all kinds of different places within the field. Whether you want to go into the sustainability side, or if you want to go into spec drawing or doing renderings or other things, it’s all about how you want to approach the field, and I think that’s unique to architecture. A lot of industries don’t have that much of a bandwidth.”

Rothschild-Shea said his firm has had success with entry-level interns and entry-level architects, adding that his team members appreciate the relationship aspects of the business. “I think we continue to be people-centric at our core; what we’re doing is designing buildings for people, and we certainly continue to focus on service and taking care of people.”

After all, Tierney said, this is a career in which professionals can bring a job from the drawing board to often very impressive fruition, and that’s a draw for many young people.

“That’s probably my favorite part of the job,” she told BusinessWest — “to draw something on a piece of paper, show it to a client who gets excited about it, and then see it literally come out of the ground and walk through the building with them and have them say, ‘this is exactly what I wanted.’”

Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners Marks 75 Years of Change

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Vice President Vinny Magnano (left) and President Jeff Noble.
Architecture Special Coverage

Something to Build On

Vice President Vinny Magnano (left) and President Jeff Noble.

Vice President Vinny Magnano (left) and President Jeff Noble.

Western Mass. is home to dozens of architecture firms. And engineering firms. And land-surveying companies.

Not too many can say they’re all three.

But over its 75 years in business — it celebrates that milestone early in 2024 — Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners Inc. has evolved into a entity that can manage all those aspects of a project. And President Jeff Noble says that broad expertise sets Hill apart in its field — or, more accurately, fields. It’s also a strong buffer against shifting economic tides.

“We’re organized in three departments — architecture, engineering, and civil surveying — and it’s seldom that you get all three of those going gangbusters all at once,” Noble explained. “Sometimes we’re very fortunate, but other times, one might wane a little bit, while the other two are going well. That diversity of services has carried us along, so we’re able to sustain the level of employment and the types of services we offer. That’s been a big benefit.”

The company’s roughly 40 employees reflect that range: architects; structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers; civil engineers, land surveyors, and survey technicians; and project managers, designers, and drafters in all three niches.

For instance, “we did a brand-new facility for Standard Uniform Services. We started with the permitting, the site development, the architecture, the engineering, and designed that whole facility for them,” Noble explained, adding that it contracted with Forish Construction on the build. “That range of services has allowed us to provide all that, though it’s not always necessary that you need all those services together.”

“A lot of architectural firms are just architectural firms, and they have to go to get an engineer for structural, mechanical, electrical, civil … that’s not part of their company. In Western Mass., very few of those have combined engineering and architecture — and certainly not land surveying besides.”

Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners was established by William T. Hill in 1949 to provide mechanical-engineering design services to the robust paper industry of the Berkshires. It has called Dalton, a small town just east of Pittsfield, its home since its opening.

“Mr. Hill was a paper-mill engineer for Crane & Co. here in town, and he evolved from there,” Noble said of the company’s founding. “He grew little by little and did structural engineering, electrical, and mechanical engineering, strictly for the pulp and paper business.”

Vice President Vin Magnano came on board in 1975, and the company’s work and client base started to expand beyond paper into a wide range of commercial and industrial clients — still primarily engineering, but moving gradually into some design work.

“Then it just started to evolve organically to include more architectural work,” Noble added. “And we had engineering here to offer as backup for an architectural project, so it made a lot of sense.”

This Berkshire Family YMCA project

This Berkshire Family YMCA project includes a pool, court, elevated track, and fitness room.

Magnano recalled that “when I came here — I was just a kid, in my 20s — the only architecture we did was to put up a building that covered the machinery; that’s all they cared about. But we started changing after I was here a few years.”

In 1980, a group of five employees purchased the fixed assets of the founder and changed the company’s name to Hill Engineering Inc., and the company began to expand its footprint further in the fields of architecture, engineering, and surveying. In 1986, the company’s leadership contacted Noble, who had worked there before, to head up the growing architectural group. He was intrigued by Hill’s new model.

“I said, ‘yeah, that sounds like a good opportunity,’ and it turned out it was,” he told BusinessWest, adding that, as an architect, “I always appreciated having engineering in-house. A lot of architectural firms are just architectural firms, and they have to go to get an engineer for structural, mechanical, electrical, civil … that’s not part of their company. In Western Mass., very few of those have combined engineering and architecture — and certainly not land surveying besides.”

The company name was changed again in 1987 to Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners, Inc. to better reflect these expanded areas of service.

“We still do an awful lot just like we always have: we listen to our clients and respond to their needs. They come to us with a problem to solve, and we solve the problem, and move on to the next one.”

“We just started growing the architectural side of the business, doing more commercial work and some residential, institutional, recreational … lots of different types of projects that weren’t industrial. We added staff, and the company has grown over the years.”

 

Industrial Evolution

Over the decades, Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners has performed work for dozens of the most recognizable names in Western Mass., including General Dynamics, General Electric, Berkshire Health Systems, Union Carbide, Solutia, Kanzaki, and Smith & Wesson, as well as numerous colleges and universities; several Berkshire County municipalities; recreational, religious, and commercial entities; cultural institutions like Berkshire Museum, MASS MoCA, the Clark, and Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center; and land subdivisions throughout the region.

“When the architecture started to evolve from the paper mills, it was still industrial-based, no commercial; we hardly ever did banks or colleges or any of that,” Magnano said. “It was really driven in the industrial.”

Today, the firm boasts many long-time clients in all those sectors above, some for 40 years or more, he added.

Its acquisition of West Stockbridge Enterprises became an opportunity to get into the land-surveying and civil-engineering aspect, Noble added. “It, again, broadened our range of services that we can provide to our clients, whether it was strictly a subdivision survey or supported an architectural project. Clients say, ‘hey, I want to build something,’ and they’ve got to go through all the permitting aspects, site design, maybe find a site, do site analysis. All that started to become services we could provide for our clients.”

Meanwhile, in the engineering group, Magnano said, “we still do pretty much every discipline except fire protection; we partner with a company in Albany for all our fire-protection work.”

The Weidmann Electrical Technology facility in St. Johnsbury, Vt.

The Weidmann Electrical Technology facility in St. Johnsbury, Vt. is among the firm’s largest projects.

The firm’s radius of work is typically about 50 miles, though it has done major projects outside that, including a major expansion of Weidmann Electrical Technology’s paper mill in St. Johnsbury, Vt., one of that region’s largest employers, a little over a decade ago — about 35 years after Hill first worked on a project for Weidmann.

“They were losing their edge in the market, in the industry; Germany and other places were building new, high-tech stuff. So they spent $40 million doing a new addition on the old addition. We did everything, right from the site work,” Magnano said. “That was probably one of the most unique jobs we’ve done, and we were literally in there from day one — about four years. That was a big one.”

Over the decades, Hill has seen a number of changes, from technology to the way projects are bid. For one thing, there are fewer long-term, local relationships with clients because of consolidation, with clients being purchased by larger entities all the time. “So your companies that used to be local are now owned by a company that’s out of Springfield, Illinois or something,” Noble said. “You don’t have the same relationship, unfortunately.”

Meanwhile, codes and regulations have become more challenging, and an emphasis on energy efficiency and sustainability has impacted how projects are designed, he added. “But we still do an awful lot just like we always have: we listen to our clients and respond to their needs. They come to us with a problem to solve, and we solve the problem, and move on to the next one.”

 

Welcome Mat

One negative trend that has impacted businesses of all kinds has been recruiting and retaining talent, and Noble said Hill has been able to maintain a steady staff, but it’s not always easy, especially with engineers.

“You don’t see people applying. It used to be people would come in, knock on the door, send a résumé pretty routinely. Now we can’t even solicit them. We go out and try to get them, and no responses,” he told BusinessWest, adding that Hill’s headquarters in the Berkshires can be a problem for some. “Our location just doesn’t seem to have the attraction for younger people. They’d rather go to the cities where there’s potential for maybe more glamorous or high-profile types of work.

“Students are still enlisting in engineering and architecture schools, but they don’t tend to come back here,” he added. “They go to UMass or Boston for college, but then they won’t come back to the Berkshires to work. That’s what we see as the issue.”

Still, the firm has managed to attract employees from the Pioneer Valley and the Albany, N.Y. areas, and it has also maintained relationships with trade schools to bring young people in for co-op experiences, some of which have resulted in hires over the years.

“You don’t have to necessarily get a master’s in such-and-such; you know you can come out of trade school and go to work as a computer operator here, and we’ll put you to work,” Noble explained. “You can learn on the fly, but under the tutelage of professional engineers.”

Magnano added that “we’ve been fortunate enough to get some individuals whose roots are in Dalton, or close by, and wanted to come back to Dalton. Over the last five to 10 years, we’ve really brought in another whole generation that hopefully will keep it going.”

NUPRO plastic-fabrication factory in South Deerfield

Here, the envelope and siding go up on the NUPRO plastic-fabrication factory in South Deerfield.

Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners has been community-minded in other ways as well, Noble said, by supporting local nonprofits, social organizations, churches, and other causes in a number of ways.

“The [Dalton] Community Recreation Association is one, whether we do our work at a reduced fee or we support them through ads in their programs, or we sponsor a basketball team or baseball team.”

The firm also supports the Pittsfield YMCA, for which it just completed a major $12 million renovation, including a pool, court, elevated track, fitness facilities, and more. Often, Hill is able to provide services to nonprofit clients at a lower cost, or in an in-kind way, he said. “It works both ways. We get good experience out of it, and the client gets the service at a more affordable level.”

The firm’s leadership and employees also sit on boards and are encouraged to volunteer in the community, Noble added.

 

Shovels Out

As part of its 75th-anniversary year, the team at Hill is planning to bury a time capsule that includes, among other artifacts, some tools of the trade in 2023, and then unearth it 25 years from now, at the company’s centennial, to see how much their industry — sorry, industries — have changed.

Things have certainly changed plenty since 1949.

“I think we’re just very proud of having carried on Mr. Hill’s legacy here for 75 years,” Noble said. “I think he’d be really happy to see where we’re at. And who knows? Maybe we’ll keep it going for another 75.”

For Architects, It’s a Time for Being Flexible, Opportunistic

By Contributor
River Valley Co-op
Architecture Special Coverage

Building Momentum

By Mark Morris

River Valley Co-op

The outdoor seating area at River Valley Co-op before it opened last spring.

Curtis Edgin says his business is all about flexibility and constantly making adjustments. This is the case when times are ‘normal,’ he noting, adding that the pandemic and its many side-effects have only added new dimensions to this equation.

Edgin is a principal at Caolo & Bieniek Associates architecture firm in Springfield, and he appreciates that his firm has stayed busy for the last two years, a time when adjusting and remaining flexible became the norm for everyone, not just architects.

“We were fortunate to have a backlog going into the pandemic; because projects were at different phases, we’ve continued to stay busy throughout,” said Edgin said, noting that municipal projects such as schools, libraries and public safety facilities make up more than two-thirds of Caolo & Bieniek’s portfolio.

Much of the design work handled by Kuhn Riddle Architects in Amherst involves colleges and universities. When campuses switched to online learning during the height of the pandemic, they also put many of their building projects on pause, said Aelan Tierney, president of Kuhn Riddle, adding that this began to change this past fall and her firm has been extremely busy since then.

“Colleges felt more confident about the future in terms of bringing students back to campus, so all the on-hold projects came back to life,” she told BusinessWest. “It’s been a complete turnaround from where we were in 2020.”

Meanwhile, it was two years ago that daily headlines generated speculation about if and how area restaurants, pummeled by the pandemic and draconian restrictions, would survive. They have survived — and many are thriving — by adapting to changing times, said Thomas Douglas, principal of Thomas Douglas Architects in Northampton, a firm that specializes in the restaurant and hospitality sectors.

Kuhn Riddle Architects President Aelan Tierney

Kuhn Riddle Architects President Aelan Tierney

“Our restaurateur clients put their focus on refiguring their spaces with less seating and shifted to a different type of service model geared more toward takeout,” said Douglas, adding that these adjustments kept this sector — and his firm — busy at a time when such vibrancy seemed unlikely.

Together these stories convey a time of challenge and opportunity for area architecture firms — a time when some projects were scrapped or delayed, but when others came onto and then off the drawing board as different types of clients adjusted to what the pandemic brought to their doorsteps.

And for many, what it brought was a pressing need to improve the air circulation.

Indeed, design plans for the River Valley Co-op in Easthampton were drawn up long before COVID was on anyone’s radar, said Douglas. From its inception, the plan was for the co-op to run nearly net zero, with most of its heating and air conditioning provided by an array of solar panels covering a large portion of the parking lot. With much of the actual construction of River Valley occurring during the height of the pandemic, he noted that the firm made several changes on the fly. The original plan called for a grab-and-go food area that was nixed after contemplating the idea of people touching food in an open area. At the same time, air quality, took on a new urgency.

“In the middle of the project we needed to shift gears and upgrade the HVAC system with more-robust filtering capacities,” Douglas said. “We made these changes to better address the effects of the pandemic.”

The pandemic has brought other changes and adjustments, especially when it comes to needed materials, said those we spoke with, adding that supply chain shortages combined with steady price hikes for building materials and mechanical equipment have become a constant challenge.

Because architects plan projects that won’t break ground until months later, figuring out what materials will be available and what they will cost has become a big ongoing concern. Tierney said right now mechanical equipment such as generators are delayed up to 12 months before they are available.

“It’s very unsettling for clients and contractors to not know how long it will take to do a project,” Tierney said. “No one feels confident about cost estimates that are put together today because you don’t know if they will be relevant in three to six months when you actually start construction.”

“Any new project plan has to evaluate how it will impact the environment.”

For this issue and its focus on architecture and engineering, BusinessWest talked with several area architects about the many ways the pandemic has impacted business — and how this sector has responded as it always has, by making adjustments and positioning itself effectively for the day when the storm clouds move out.

 

Blueprint for Success

It’s called a ‘Zoom booth’ — by some people, anyway.

Like the name suggests, it’s a small space, like a phone booth, only instead of phone calls, it’s for the Zoom meetings that have now become part of day-today life in the modern workplace.

“It’s a place where someone in an open office setting can pop into a quieter space to take part in a remote online meeting,” said Tierney, adding that while her firm has included such spaces in many of its plans, it has also converted several conference rooms to accommodate meetings where some people attend in-person while others take part virtually.

Curtis Edgin (left) and James Hanifan

Curtis Edgin (left) and James Hanifan say the pandemic has thrown extra layers of complexity into renovations, particularly with HVAC.

Zoom booths and altered conference rooms would be among the more subtle changes to the landscape resulting from the pandemic, said those we spoke with, adding that the more dramatic adjustments, as noted, involve air flow and a recognized need to improve it.

And the amount of work — and redesign — needed generally depends on the age and condition of the building.

Indeed, unlike making a design change in new construction, planning a retrofit with existing buildings brings another level of challenge, said Edgin, citing, as one example, a school client looking to replace its old rooftop heating unit with an upgraded unit that would add cooling to the system.

“First we look at structural considerations, such as whether the building support the new unit if it weighs more than the old one,” Edgin said.

The next step according to James Hanifan, also a principal at Caolo & Bieniek, concerns the duct work in the building.

“Many older facilities don’t have the ventilation systems that are required by today’s building codes,” he explained, adding that older buildings often depend on operational windows for ventilation which cannot be relied on in cold weather and can invite mold into the building during rainy times of the year.

Schools may opt to purchase stand-alone air filtering units to install in every classroom but that can be complicated, too.

“Sometimes they find out the electrical system can’t support all that additional equipment,” said Hanifan. “Now they’ve got a different issue.”

Recent funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) has certainly helped municipalities in budgeting for these projects. Edgin anticipated that many will use their ARPA funds for improved HVAC and energy projects in their schools and other public buildings.

Overall, energy efficiency and sustainability are built into architecture plans. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification is one standard that has provided what Tierney called a great baseline for architects when considering sustainability standards.

Last year Gov. Charlie Baker signed Executive Order 594 which requires all state buildings to meet strict energy efficiency and emission standards going forward.

“Any new project plan has to evaluate how it will impact the environment,” Tierney said. “The goal is to reach carbon-neutral and net-zero emissions by 2050.” Independently, organizations are increasingly focused on reducing energy consumption and on the types of materials they use when constructing their buildings.

“It’s great to see Massachusetts as one of the strongest states in terms of energy code,” Tierney said. “They are aggressively increasing energy requirements every three years when they update state building codes, which is fantastic.”

Thomas Douglas

Thomas Douglas says River Valley Co-op had a strong emphasis on sustainability from the start.

While the River Valley Co-op had a strong emphasis on sustainability from its inception, Douglas suggested a creative addition to the plan that maintained the spirit of the project.

“My first college degree was in landscape architecture, so I worked with the coop to create a large outdoor patio that has a view of Mt. Tom,” Douglas said. With easy access from inside the building as well as outside, the layout can also accommodate a food truck next to the patio.

“We wanted to create a vibrant, exciting, and yet cozy outdoor atmosphere for the patio.”

 

Drawing on Experience

Meanwhile, both public and private spaces are being adjusted to provide employees and visitors with larger and, in many ways, different spaces.

Indeed, a few years ago, companies had begun planning office layouts that were open and airy to encourage more collaborative workspaces. The arrival of COVID caused a change to some of those plans.

“After designing for an open-office concept, the pandemic came along, and we had clients who wanted to go back to individual cubicles,” Edgin said.

Kuhn Riddle is still creating collaborative areas, while at the same time staying conscious about air exchange and filtration.

“As we begin opening back up and taking off our masks people remain concerned about air quality,” Tierney said. “The last two years have definitely influenced how we think about design.”

When the Westfield Boys and Girls Club was planning a childcare wing, it increased the size of the project from 11,000 to 15,000 square feet because the state had increased minimum space standards per child from 35 to 42 square feet after COVID hit, said Tierney, adding that her firm was brought in as the schematic design architect to work on this part of the project with Chris Carey, the architect of record on the building expansion.

“We don’t know if the state will ever go back to a smaller square-foot-per-child standard, but we wanted to be ready in the future for another pandemic or other event that requires keeping children spaced apart,” she explained.

Add to these challenges and adjustments the ongoing supply-chain issues and escalating prices of materials, which together bring new levels of complexity — and stress — to designing projects and seeing them to completion

As part of a dormitory renovation at Elms College, Hanifan was planning for a certain type of carpet only to be told that, if it even gets produced (and that’s a big if), there will be a 16-24 week lead time. He has already begun adjusting the plan because the project must be completed before the fall semester in September.

“We will look at other colors and if we can’t get those, we will have to look at other manufacturers.”

This constant uncertainty often puts his municipal clients in a tough spot.

“No one wants to hear that prices have spiked and everyone knows prices don’t tend to go down,” Hanifan said. “So, there is a lot of indecision on whether to go ahead with the project or wait to see if prices come back down at some point.”

While supply chain delays and rising costs are still part of daily life, a sense of optimism creeps in as the weather becomes warmer and COVID mandates get relaxed.

“It’s been a tough couple of years, but I think we’ve turned the corner,” Tierney said.

Hanifan acknowledged that in the immediate short-term, supply chain issues will continue because manufacturers are under pressure to get materials out as fast as they can.

“Eventually they will be able to re-stock and fill their warehouses once again,” Hanifan said. “It may be a few years out but I’m optimistic it will happen.”

All it takes is remaining flexible and making adjustments when necessary.

Architects Busy Right Now, but COVID-19 Clouds the Future

By
Curtis Edgin
Coronavirus Sections Special Coverage

Shaky Ground

Curtis Edgin

Curtis Edgin says the status of jobs often comes down to how far along in the pipeline they are.

Kevin Rothschild-Shea had just gotten off a conference call with employees of his company, Architecture EL in East Longmeadow — one of many he’s undertaken since his team began working largely remotely.

“We’re doing well. We’ve jumped to working remotely and continue to function,” he said. “We’re maintaining our focus on multi-family and affordable housing, which has been strong, and we’re fortunate to have a number of projects.”

Looking 12 to 24 months out, the outlook is a bit murkier.

“We’re fortunate to have a lot of work in the pipeline, but we’re definitely seeing a reduction in new work and jobs starting out,” he told BusinessWest. “Quite a number of projects have been put on hold given the economic and COVID climate, so we’re seeing new projects hit ‘pause’ to a greater or lesser degree.

“We feel pretty comfortable with the workload right now, but when we look down the road, there are definitely concerns,” Rothschild-Shea went on. “We just want to keep everyone working and employed, keep everyone safe, and keep doing what we do.”

Curtis Edgin, president of Caolo & Bieniek Associates in Chicopee, told a similar story as he keeps in contact with his team remotely as well.

“We’re still busy — it’s not quite as efficient as working side by side and collaborating,” he said, adding quickly that his team has had no problem managing a number of projects currently in the pipeline. After that, though…

“We’re fortunate to have a lot of work in the pipeline, but we’re definitely seeing a reduction in new work and jobs starting out.”

“I think there will be a long-term impact in that people will be afraid — or forced, based on economic reasons, to slow down — until things stabilize and get back to where they need to be,” he said. “Right now, it’s hard to ask taxpayers or a corporation to spend additional money when they’re worried about other things.

“For the near term, we’re going to be busy, then we’ll probably see a slowdown,” Edgin went on. “That’s more of a long-term impact that will eventually correct itself like any other construction cycle.”

That’s the hope, anyway. Meanwhile, as definitive answers about the eventual length of the economic shutdown, and the damage it will cause, are difficult to assess right now, firms continue to plan for an uncertain future.

Moving Forward

Edgin said Caolo & Bieniek has plenty projects in various phases, and how the pandemic affects individual project can vary dramatically between jobs.

“Some projects are able to maintain their schedule,” he noted. “One of our school projects is going on, there’s a lot of site work, so nothing keeps people from working at different ends of the site. At some other projects, interior ones, [COVID-19] is starting to impact the ability to perform the work if people are working side by side. It depends on the project.”

On the municipal side, he explained, everything that needs to be voter-approved going forward — that is, when city and town halls begin ramping back up — may be a harder sell, an any tax increases during these times of sudden unemployment will be met with resistance.

“On the flip side, with the interest rates being so low, now is a wonderful time to continue,” Edgin added. “Many of these municipalities have already secured the approval of taxpayers, selectmen, or whoever makes the decision to actually move forward, and a lot of them getting really great financing rates, getting a lot of mileage out of their dollar.”

On the private commercial side, many companies and developers will wait for the dust to settle. “If they’re already committed, if we’re already moving forward, typically they keep going. If they’re just about to move on a project, maybe they have just a little hesitation.”

Kevin Rothschild-Shea

Kevin Rothschild-Shea says his firm is on solid footing in the short term, but expects work across the industry to slow somewhat after that.

In addition to its usual array of multi-family and affordable-housing projects, Architecture EL has been tackling, among other things, a Holyoke project with Local 104 Plumbers and Pipefitters and a project for Theodores’ in downtown Springfield.

“They’ve had significant slowdowns, as all restaurants have, but continue to look down the road at their overall restaurant needs, and they’re looking to keep that project on track,” Rothschild-Shea said. Meanwhile, he understands that other businesses will respond to the current economic climate by tapping the brakes and preserving cash flow.

The architecture world has responded to the COVID-19 crisis in other ways, too. For example, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) launched a task force to help inform public officials, healthcare-facility owners, and architects on adapting buildings into temporary healthcare facilities.

“On a daily basis, I am hearing from our architects who feel a deep sense of moral duty to support our healthcare providers on the front lines of this pandemic,” AIA President Jane Frederick wrote on the AIA website. “As our communities assess buildings to address growing surge capacity, we hope this task force will be a resource to ensure buildings are appropriately and safely adapted for our doctors and nurses.”

“I think there will be a long-term impact in that people will be afraid — or forced, based on economic reasons, to slow down — until things stabilize and get back to where they need to be.”

The task force has developed a model of ‘rapid-response safety space asssessment’ for AIA members that will include considerations for the suitability of buildings, spaces, and other sites for patient care.

“This is a race against time for healthcare facilities to meet bed surge-capacity needs,” Kirsten Waltz, president of the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health and director of Facilities, Planning, and Design for Baystate Health, also noted on the website. “This task force will help inform best practices for quickly assessing building inventory and identifying locations that are most appropriate to be adapted for this crisis.”

Waiting Game

Meanwhile, life goes on for local firms like Architecture EL, even if the team can’t see each other face to face.

“We see a little loss of efficiency in terms of communicating, trying to connect with the team, but we’re doing well on that front,” Rothschild-Shea said, adding that he conducts at least three project-management conference calls a week. “I’m looking forward to the camaraderie of working together.”

He believes companies, in architecture and elsewhere, will take lessons from these many weeks of remote work, many of them positive, if only an understanding the capabilities technology-supported teams have to do things more efficiently.

“It’s a whole different way of working,” he added. “We’re already looking down the road at the so-called recovery and how we will reintegrate and get back to work. But we expect there will be some changes for the better. We’re trying to look at the positives.”

Edgin said Caolo & Bieniek, like other firms, is able to keep employees busy in the short team because of the long arc of many projects, but no one can really predict the impact of a sustained economic shutdown.

“It’s different here than in retail, where you need to have someone coming through the door purchasing something to pay the sales clerk,” he noted. “We’ve got things in the works in the near term. As for the more intermediate term and the future … we’ll see.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]