THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 3, 1996 TAG: 9606010148
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY TOM SHEAN BUSINESS WEEKLY
LENGTH: 201 lines
The color photo of a Coast Guard facility at Chincoteague could pass for something out of a slick marketing brochure.
Instead, the picture is part of a package on the Internet.
To promote itself to prospective clients around the country, the Norfolk architecture firm Hanbury Evans Newill Vlattas & Co. is launching an Internet ``home page'' this week.
The home page will include descriptions of Hanbury Evans' services and details about some recent projects, including the Coast Guard housing and administration complex.
This summer, the firm expects to have in place a three-dimensional ``tour'' that will enable Internet users to walk through each of the projects on its home page, said Nicholas E. Vlattas, Hanbury Evans' chief operating officer.
This use of the Internet is part of of the heightened attention that local architecture firms have devoted to marketing themselves.
For decades, many architects concentrated on the aesthetic aspects of their work. Speeding up the design process and bringing in new clients were secondary concerns.
But by the 1990s, that became a recipe for bankruptcy. A sharp downturn in commercial construction, along with clients' efforts to control building expenses, forced most architecture firms to pursue new business opportunities more aggressively.
In January, Clark Nexsen Owen Barbieri & Gibson Architects & Engineers in Norfolk created a post of vice president for marketing and went outside the firm to fill it. In the past, the firm's marketing responsibilities had been spread among its officers, said Bob Gibson, Clark Nexsen's president and chief executive officer.
``Ninety-five percent of our business is repeat business, but you still have to market yourself because the environment is very competitive,'' Gibson said. ``There are hundreds of people who could displace you.''
Richard S. Corner, vice president of business development at Williams Tazewell and Associates, described a change in attitude at the Norfolk firm when the building boom of the 1980s ended.
``Before, we could wait for the phone to ring or depend on word of mouth,'' he said. ``Today, there are too many good architects out there competing for work.''
Like architecture firms elsewhere in the nation, many in Hampton Roads were stung by the downturn in commercial construction in the early 1990s. With a glut of office and retail space on the market, the demand for designs of new buildings nearly evaporated.
Some firms responded by expanding into new lines of work. Others narrowed their focus and shopped for clients beyond Virginia.
Hanbury Evans, formed in late 1985 from the merger of Hanbury & Co. in Norfolk and Evans Hudson Vlattas Architects in Hampton, had attracted attention over the years with an array of projects.
These ranged from the renovation of the ornate Wells Theater in downtown Norfolk to the design of a sleek regional headquarters in Norfolk for the insurance organization USAA.
Hanbury Evans was unscathed by the downturn in commercial construction, but it lost a major client in 1991 when the parent of Sovran Bank merged with NCNB Corp. to form Charlotte-based NationsBank Corp. The firm lost another important client in the early `90s when chemical manufacturer BASF Corp. moved its fibers division from Williamsburg to Charlotte.
But Hanbury Evans had already decided to concentrate on design work for two types of clients: colleges and universities and the Defense Department. One reason for focusing on these groups was their continued need for new buildings and the opportunities to develop long-term relationships, said John Paul Hanbury, the firm's chairman.
``Ten years ago, we made a commitment to pursue market niches,'' said S. Michael Evans, the firm's president and chief executive officer. And that decision, he said, is paying off.
In its pursuit of business from academic institutions outside Virginia, Hanbury Evans has picked up work at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.; Tulane University in New Orleans, and Ohio State University in Columbus.
So far this year, Hanbury Evans has added four employees, including two architects and an architect intern. The firm's 41 employees include 20 architects.
For the fiscal year that ended last Oct. 31, the firm's largest source of revenue was work for federal agencies. This accounted for 49 percent of $4.2 million in annual revenues. Work for academic institutions accounted for 38 percent of revenues, and the design of laboratory facilities brought in 3 percent. The balance came from a mix of sources, including historic preservation work.
Like Hanbury Evans, Clark Nexsen has relied heavily on design work for federal agencies. Over the years, the Norfolk office became increasingly important to what had been a Lynchburg-based firm. By 1988, the firm shifted its headquarters to Norfolk.
Today almost half of Clark Nexsen's work involves federal projects overseas, Gibson said. These include construction of a training facility in Egypt and work at a U.S. air base in Italy.
But three years ago, the prospect of cutbacks in defense spending prompted Clark Nexsen to diversify its services. The firm began doing design work on computer and telecommunications facilities for commercial customers, including banks and credit unions, said Gibson, an engineer.
As part of that expansion drive, Clark Nexsen also acquired a seven-person architecture firm in Charlotte in 1994.
The effort to generate additional business hasn't slowed. So far this year, the firm has added 22 employees, bringing its work force in Norfolk to 102 employees and 22 employees in Charlotte.
For 1996, the firm expects to ring up revenues of $10 million, compared with $7.6 million in 1995, Gibson said.
As it turned out, base closings and other defense-related cutbacks provided opportunities for additional design work, not less. Because Clark Nexsen had designed a facility to house F-18 fighters at the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina, it was able to land a contract for designing a similar facility at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach when Oceana was tapped to accommodate F-18s from Cherry Point, Gibson said.
In a survey of 15,000 architecture firms throughout the country, the American Institute of Architects determined that more than a third of their billings in 1992 came from rehabilitation and renovation projects.
Due partly to the downturn in new construction, Williams Tazewell shifted its attention in that direction in the early 1990s. One major project involved the conversion of Norfolk's old Center Theatre to the Harrison Opera House.
An even bigger renovation is under way along Granby Street in Norfolk, where Williams Tazewell is converting vacant stores and a vacant movie theater to classrooms and a library for Tidewater Community College. The $18 million project, which Williams Tazewell handled with a Pittsburgh architecture firm, included construction of a five-story science center on Granby Street at College Place.
But bringing in new work doesn't assure any architecture firm of additional profit. While the pace of new construction has spurred demand for design work, local architects say some of their clients have become sophisticated at shopping for services and holding down their costs.
In fact, some government agencies and companies require architects to team with general contractors when competing for certain projects. Dubbed ``design-build,'' this arrangement is an effort to speed up the time between a project's conception and completion.
Hanbury Evans hopes to attract additional business with a different sort of partnership: It plans to offer universities a package of financial, design and construction services.
One of its partners in this effort will be an investment banking firm that specializes in financing university projects, Evans said. Another partner will be a construction management firm that oversees work at academic facilities.
By forming the team, Hanbury Evans hopes to get into the design process earlier than it could under conventional circumstances. The firm, said Evans, expects to have the partnership in place later this year.
To accommodate the additional work, Hanbury Evans is expanding beyond the two floors it occupies in a downtown office building on Atlantic Street. It has taken over the building's first floor and begun refurbishing it for a reception area and offices.
Under pressure to wring out greater productivity from their staffs, architecture firms have sought to speed up design work by installing computer-aided drafting systems and more advanced computer equipment. At Clark Nexsen, ``we pump from 7 to 12 percent of our annual gross receipts into new technology,'' Gibson said.
But the efforts to improve efficiency involve more than the installation of new equipment.
Clark Nexsen, for example, has been using a consulting firm to foster greater teamwork within the firm. Partly because this emphasis on teamwork also improves employees' communication skills, ``it pays off quicker than sending people to technology courses,'' Gibson said.
At Hanbury Evans, the firm's management conducts quarterly meetings with employees to share financial information and describe the firm's progress toward its goals for the year.
In addition, ``we have a ton of lunchtime seminars,'' Evans said. ``Nick (Vlattas) may talk about how fees are set, how the overhead is calculated or how the profits are used by the firm.''
These meetings and lunchtime seminars are part of a broader effort to hold onto employees and build cohesion. If it failed to encourage a combination of responsibility and fun within the firm, Hanbury Evans would risk having talented employees depart for other firms, Evans said.
``If people understand where they fit in, they will take more responsibility,'' said Evans, who divides his time between management tasks and working on designs for college and university clients. ``If they don't have a sense of responsibility, you're fighting a losing battle.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color cover photo by Martin Smith-Rodden
Business Architecture
[Three men standing]
Photos
Color photo by Alan Karchmer
Coast Guard buildings at Chincoteague....
Color photo by Carlton S. Abbott<
The Chischiak Watch residential community in Yorktown...
Color photo by Carlton S. Abbott
The Manassas Industrial School/Jennie Dean Memorial in Manassas...
Color photo by Ed Pease
Temporay studio for architects in Newport News...
Color photo by Paul Rocheleau
Diggs Town community revitalization in Norfolk...
Color photo by Tamara Mischenko
Matthew Jones House preservation at Fort Eustis... by CNB