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Crews from Morley Builders form and pour concrete walls and risers at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, a project designed by the Los Angeles office of HNTB Architecture (photo by Paul Napolitano).
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The five fastest-growing companies in California between 2003 and 2004 were the Los Angeles offices of two architecture firms, a San Diego-based general contractor/construction manager, the Sacramento office of a GC and a Rancho Cordova-based specialty contractor.
RNL Design, HNTB Architecture Inc., Barnhart Inc., Flintco, and Urata and Sons Concrete Inc. are the fastest-growing companies in the California construction industry, a determination based on percentage growth in total revenue between 2003 and 2004.
The annual revenue figures from the firms were collected by California Construction for the annual rankings of the largest architecture, general contractors and specialty contractors.
RNL Design
Designing city maintenance yards may not sound sexy, but it has been a big reason for a recent growth spurt for the 16-year-old Los Angeles office of RNL Design.
The Denver-based architecture firm increased its revenue by 213 percent between 2003 and 2004, which made it the fastest-growing architecture firm in California. RNL Design forecasted $7.3 million in revenue in 2005.
The L.A. office's 35-person staff includes seven licensed architects with another six now in the licensing process. By the end of next year, the office will swell to 50 employees.
"There's a wave of investment in these kind of facilities because they are an important type of infrastructure for the city," said Patrick M. McKelvey, AIA, a RNL Design principal who joined the Los Angeles office shortly after it opened in 1989.
McKelvey said cities are investing more capital into their maintenance facilities because they need to last up to 50 years and create a pleasant environment for the people that work there.
"Most of these facilities are dark and dreary and places where people had to work, but never want to work," he said. "But they need to be high quality and timeless. And cities have to have nice places to work even if they're for a mechanic working on a vehicle or bus --places where people want to spend eight to 10 hours a day."
RNL Design is involved in the design of large maintenance and fleet-parking facilities in Yorba Linda, Santa Cruz and West Los Angeles. The projects' total construction cost is about $70 million.
McKelvey said one of the objectives established by the firm five years ago was to raise the design awareness and excellence of the firm.
"We got Kate [Diamond] on board about three years ago to lead the L.A. office as design principal," he said. "It's been a huge turnaround for us in terms of design awareness and diversification into new markets. She's very good at communicating and selling the design approach to a client."
HNTB Architecture
When Tony Gonzales says his firm has a lot of balls in the air, he's not just using a figure of speech.
Gonzales, vice president and Los Angeles office leader of HNTB Architecture Inc., said the recently completed expansion of a football stadium in Oregon, ongoing work for a sports arena in Los Angeles and the current master-plan contract for an $11-billion modernization program at Los Angeles International Airport are the main reasons for his office's robust growth.
"It's not as if something just fell into our laps," Gonzales said. "This was a planned growth initiative that HNTB had in place here in Los Angeles and on the West Coast."
HNTB increased its revenue by 162 percent between 2003 and 2004, which made it the second fastest-growing architecture firm in California. The firm forecasted $18 million in revenue for 2005.
While large stadiums are a specialty on a national scale for HNTB, it was the arrival of Gonzales in 2003--after running his own Santa Monica-based practice for 20 years--that gave Kansas City, Mo.-based HNTB a stronger local presence.
"One step in terms of getting leadership in L.A. was getting someone who was part of the fabric of business here," said Gonzales, a native of East Los Angeles.
That local connection lead to HNTB nabbing the design for the expansion of Reser Stadium at Oregon State University and the design for the ground-up construction of the Galen Center, a 10,000-seat indoor arena at the University of Southern California. And the firm recently picked up a major retrofit project for Memorial Stadium at UC Berkeley and a design contract for a new municipal arena in Tucson.
The creation of HNTB Architecture last year has made a fast impact.
"We now have a national practicing architecture company that acts, lives and breathes like architects," Gonzales said.
Flintco Inc.
When Tulsa, Oka.-based Flintco Inc. opened an office in Sacramento six years ago, the goal was to expand the general contractor's presence in California.
The goal has been met, and Flintco is the fastest-growing general contractor.
Having overseen revenue growth of 102.1 percent from 2003 to 2004 ($46 million to $93 million), David Parkes, area manager/senior vice president, said much of that success can be attributed to the company's "talented people who have made a big commitment to California."
Parkes said Flintco's big contract knowledge and financial strength give it the ability to compete, especially in the Central Valley. One of the first things Parkes did when he came aboard three years ago after a long stint at McCarthy Building Cos. was to form a special projects group to do smaller-scale projects as well as the biggies.
"As an open shop, Flintco is able to call on all subcontractors--union or non union--to tackle all kinds of projects, from a $50,000 tenant-improvement project to a $10-million university project," he said.
Flintco Sacramento was also recently successful in landing two higher education projects have been the key ingredient in the company's regional success--the $57-million UC Merced Science and Engineering Building and the $60-million UC Davis Veterinary Medicine Facility.
"Those two projects were a big piece of that growth," Parkes said.
Barnhart Inc.
Not too long ago, Barnhart Inc. was an unknown commodity outside San Diego County.
Established in 1986, by CEO Douglas E. Barnhart, the firm expanded its reach in the last few years to Stockton and Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Ventura counties, where many cities are experiencing double-digit growth rates.
A red-hot school construction market is the main reason why Barnhart Inc. revenue jumped 73.4 percent between 2003 and 2004. The firm is forecasting revenue to reach $482 million in 2005--an increase of $296 million since year-end 2002.
"We're planning to continue to grow the branch offices to have a major presence in those areas," Barnhart said. "We think private-work opportunities--office buildings and stuff like that--will follow."
Barnhart's largest contracts include program management for $350-million worth of construction at San Joaquin Delta College (an eight-year program), a $350-million program management contract at College of the Desert and a $125-million construction management contract at Saddleback Unified School District.
The firm has been on a recruiting binge, hiring entry-level and experienced project managers.
"I'm pretty happy with the young talent, but it takes probably five or six years to develop a young graduate into someone who can be a self starter," Barnhart said. "The problem with bringing people in from the outside is that you have to get them adapted to our culture."
The company also has purchased its own aircraft so it can get high-level managers on a job site faster and more frequently.
"I can leave my house, be in Stockton and back home about as quickly as I can get in my car and drive to a jobsite in south San Diego County," Barnhart said.
Urata & Sons Concrete
The senior project manager at Urata & Sons Concrete said his firm's penetration into different markets dramatically drove revenue during the Bay Area's dot.com bust.
"We were able to pick up some large casino projects in Southern California and we have an office in Las Vegas," said John Bell, a 20-year veteran at the Rancho Cordova-based firm.
"Any regional downturn in the economy will not affect us as much," he added. "And we're doing bigger jobs and getting repeat business from bigger clients."
Established 30 years ago, Urata & Sons posted a $16-million increase in revenue, or 50-percent growth, between 2003 and 2004, which made it the fastest-growing specialty contractor in California. The company is predicting to reach $60 million in revenue by year's end.
Urata & Sons does structural and site-work concrete. And in the last couple of years, it has been for larger clients with larger projects.
The firm has a $13-million contract for the third phase of a condominium development in Truckee. Earlier in the year, it finished an $8.3-million contract for Ronald McNair School in Stockton and a $7.5-million package for San Manuel Indian Casino in San Bernardino.
Significant growth has caused the company to expand the size of its staff.
"We have added several young project managers and admin staff," Bell said. "They're young and willing to travel, which is important because these jobs are all over the place."
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