Top Design

The magazine’s Top Design ranking features its traditional overall ranking, along with an expanded selection of subcategory lists that indicate the top firms in project types and disciplines.

By Scott Judy

This year’s ranking of the region’s top design firms includes more than 110 architectural and engineering firms from the magazine’s territory of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

That’s not quite as many as participated in last year’s list, when we had 122 ranked firms. This year’s Top Design ranking represents approximately $3.1 billion in 2007 design billings – again a decrease from last year’s list, which totaled roughly $3.9 billion.

The Top Design ranking is based upon company-provided information indicating each firm’s 2007 billings figures for projects performed in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

During our survey process for this year’s ranking, the magazine asked for additional and more detailed information than in past years. Thanks to the input of this year’s Top Design firms, Southeast Construction can provide its readers with additional insights about the architectural and engineering community.

First, this year’s issue contains additional subcategory rankings that the magazine has never published before. These will provide further insights about the top designers in a particular construction category – such as health care, for example. We also are publishing subcategory rankings based on the various design disciplines.

Additionally, this year we asked the Top Design respondents to offer their opinions about various trends in the industry, such as green building, the future of the market, critical issues facing the industry and other items.

The Ranking As it has for five years in a row now, PBS&J of Tampa once again took the top spot. This year, the engineering firm reported approximately $317.8 million in ’07 Southeast billings, up from the $301.7 million it reported last year.

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Placing second this year was Kimley-Horn and Associates of Raleigh, N.C., which reported nearly $237 million in 2007 billings. AECOM Technology Corp. of Coral Gables, Fla., placed third with a $202.9 million tally.

Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) moved up from fifth last year to fourth this year. It reported roughly $138 million in regional billings for 2007, down from its 2006 total of $155 million. Jacksonville, Fla.-based Reynolds, Smith and Hills reported about $126.3 million in 2007 billings, an increase of about $25 million over its 2006 numbers. The significant increase enabled RS&H to move up from ninth place last year to fifth in the current ranking.

HNTB Corp. placed sixth with a roughly $87.5 million regional billings total for 2007, up from the nearly $83 million the firm reported on last year’s ranking. WilsonMiller of Naples, Fla., placed seventh with roughly $76.6 million in 2007 Southeast billings. That firm’s total was slightly below the $78.1 million it reported on last year’s ranking.

Perkins + Will of Atlanta followed in eighth, with about $67.4 million in Southeast ’07 billings. Earth Tech, with $65.5 million in ’07 billings in the region, took ninth. And The LPA Group of Columbia, S.C., finished in the tenth spot with about $62.1 million in Southeast ’07 billings.

Opinions on Trends Again, this year Southeast Construction took the opportunity to ask Top Design respondents about their opinions on various matters impacting the regional design and construction industry.

Among other items, we asked respondents to rank a collection of 10 key issues according to how “influential” these factors would be in the coming future. Southeast respondents ranked the topic of green building as the most influential of those on the list. Placing second was energy efficiency, and third was construction cost escalation.

Rounding out the top five of influential issues was water efficiency, which ranked fourth. The trend toward greater implementation of building information modeling, or BIM, placed fifth.

In descending order of influence, the remaining 10 were: workforce availability; adaptive re-use; building or structure security; globalization; and interoperability.

Also – and perhaps not surprisingly – when asked about the potential for increased involvement in green building designs, nearly all respondents (95.7%) indicated they expected that work to “increase” or “increase greatly” in the near future.

Regarding future prospects for the construction industry, respondents were generally more optimistic about the Southeast than the nation as a whole. While very few saw either the regional or national market “improving greatly” in the next year (4% versus 1%), a solid 44% expected to see the regional market improve within the next 12 months. About 33% of the same respondents expected to see the national market “improving” over the next year.

Other Survey Findings Since the overall ranking represented a decreased total from last year, cumulative design billings were mostly down on a state-by-state basis, too. Design billings from Florida projects totaled $2.1 billion this year, down from last year’s $2.4 billion.

The amount of billings reported from Georgia also fell, from the $661.6 million included last year, to this year’s total of $449.6 million.

Billings from North Carolina also decreased, from last year’s $492 million to the $447.7 million included this year. South Carolina billings also slumped, from the $273.5 million represented on last year’s ranking, to the $156.7 million included here.

To be included in future surveys, please send an e-mail to Scott Judy, editor, at scott_judy@mcgraw-hill.com.