Economic Impact Awards Architecture Finalist: H Design Group LLC

“We started out to be construction management and design consultants,” he said. “That just kind of snowballed into something else.”

That “something else” is a full-service architecture firm that now has 15 employees, including six licensed architects.

In just the last year, H Design Group has been the architect of record for approximately $100 million of construction in the Springfield metropolitan area. The firm is coming off recognition for one of its most notable projects to date, the $6 million renovation of and addition to the Discovery Center, which this year has achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold certification.

The green-building sector represents a growth opportunity for the firm, said Brent Stevens, who joined Haik as a partner in 2002.

“We’ve got our hands in the preliminary process of a lot of LEED-certified buildings, and we really are trying to encourage them because that’s where the market is going,” Stevens said.

H Design Group’s strategy focuses on the Springfield metropolitan area, which Stevens said is home to about 90 percent of the firm’s current projects.

In the beginning, Haik said the firm had just two clients. One was local architect Allen Casey, and the other was Signature Bank – which later became The Signature Bank and is now BancorpSouth Bank.

“We were fortunate to have some people who believed in me,” Haik said. David Kunze, Missouri regional president with Bancorp South, has been with the bank since it began. He said bank officials first met Haik about eight years ago when it held a design competition of sorts for the design of a new branch at East Sunshine Street and Ventura Avenue. “We were looking for a design that would stand out and pass the test of time, and portray an image of safety and soundness, but yet still be on the cutting edge architecturally,” Kunze said.

Haik’s design was chosen from about a half-dozen entries, marking the start of an ongoing relationship. H Design Group also designed a larger bank for Kunze and the bank in 2001. That branch is located at Kansas Expressway and James River Freeway.

“We didn’t even bother soliciting other architects, we had such a positive experience with Rob – not only on the design, but his follow-up on the construction process and seeing the project to its completion,” Kunze said, noting that Haik’s firm also did the design for the conversion of a State Farm claims office into a bank branch on East Battlefield Road in 2005.

“We’re pretty heavy into the multifamily market right now,” Stevens said. “I think there’s a strong market that we’re getting in line for, and that has to do with elderly living (developments).”

H Design Group has ventured beyond southwest Missouri, with a few jobs in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, mainly for local clients who are doing business in those states, Stevens said.

Another memorable project for H Design Group was never actually built.

“We were commissioned to do schematic work on a lodge for a Scandinavian king, where they wanted (live) billy goats on the top of the roof,” Haik said. “It never happened, but we gave them a drawing showing a grass roof system so they could have goats on the roof eating grass.”

H Design Group LLC

Address: 5051 S. National Ave., Ste. 7-A, Springfield, MO 65810

Phone: (417) 887-6595

Web site: www.hdesigngroup.com

Employees: 15

Revenues: Would not disclose[[In-content Ad]]