Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/147468
insight on ENGINEERING & ARCHITECTURE By Margaret L eBr un & Nikki Kallio A boon for builders Private sector fuels business for engineers, architects COURTESY HOFFMAN PLANNING, DESIGN & CONSTRUC TION, INC. Projects for niche industries helped Hoffman Planning, Design & Construction, Inc. of Appleton hold business steady through the recession. Pictured is the Olson Pavilion at the Lutheran Home campus in Arlington Heights, Ill., a project of Lutheran Life Communities, a nonprofit, senior living organization. D espite a wet spring that brought a slow start for many builders in Northeast Wisconsin, business has been going well this year for engineers and architects. Some say it's the best year they've had since before the recession began. Others are cautiously optimistic. "Without a doubt, this year in comparison to the last three years is just a world of difference for us, from a sales standpoint," says John DeLeers, director of business development and co-owner of DeLeers Construction, Inc., Green Bay. "We should hit record sales as a company, ever, this year." "I'm not sure if the economy kind of has come around again or not," says Tony LaShay, business development director for Excel Engineering in 32 | Insight • Au g u s t 2 013 Fond du Lac. "But I think there's been a renewed sense of things happening again." Excel has several projects under way, including the expansion at Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac as well as the 300,000-square-foot addition at Green Bay Packaging. "From an architecture and engineering standpoint, 2013 looks pretty good," says Jon Bartz, president of Martinson & Eisele Inc., Menasha. "We're seeing growth pick up in the commercial area, specifically, as we're talking with developers about retail, office and hotel projects. Manufacturing, from our standpoint, continues to be steady. We personally don't do a lot of manufacturing but people in our industry say it's continuing to be steady with new plants and plant expansions." Among several interviewed in the regional engineering industry, there's a sense that pent-up demand has finally prompted developers to move forward with projects. While public sector and non-profit projects such as schools and churches kept some firms in business through the recession, these days it's all about commercial projects, along with some publicprivate partnerships. "In the last four years or so, people were looking to see if there was going to be a change in administration within the country, and because we went in the same direction, the people just got tired of waiting around for a better economic climate," says Trevor Frank, architect with Short Elliot Hendrickson (SEH). "Or, they just capitalized on the fact that the bond rates were as low as they are, and money is as cheap as it is, and they just decided, 'You know what? We just can't wait around any longer. We just have to jump off.'" SEH has been working over the last 18 months with developer Stadtmueller & Associates on the historic Eagle Mill in Kaukauna, turning it into the Grand KaKalin development project, which will include commercial tenants, the w w w. i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m