Core Capitalizing on Growth

From his company’s conference room overlooking Interstate 540 in western Rogers, Bob Kelly can see the future.

Not in the supernatural sense of correctly predicting events or having lucrative hunches at the horse races. Instead, the president of Core Architects can look out the fourth-floor wall of windows and across the interstate and see the future of his company — on a wooded hillside at the corner of West New Hope Road and North 40th Street.

Core, which has realized a 22 percent annual growth of its business over the last five years, is about to capitalize. The company is relocating its offices from leased space on South 52nd Street into a brand-new building it will own just behind Bariola’s Pizzeria and Einstein Bros. Bagels.

The Northwest Arkansas Business Journal first reported in November of Core’s plans to buy part of the hillside acreage known as the Trout Farm property behind Bariola’s, where a dilapidated house now stands, in order to build a 22,000-SF office building.

The property is so named because it was a freshwater trout farm a century ago, and later the site of the Tail of the Trout restaurant.

Kelly said the move is necessary to accommodate a growing staff and a broader range of services. The company increased from seven to 10 employees and had 43 projects in 2012, and has active projects in Missouri, Texas, Kansas and Alabama.

“We have seven people in our studio right now, and we are at capacity,” said Kelly, who shares an office with principals and co-founders Dusty Graham and John Langham.

The new building will double the workspace for Core and its employees, who crowd together in about 2,500 SF on the fourth floor of the 70,000-SF Coca-Cola building.

Though a firm date for Core’s move hasn’t been set, preparations for construction of its new home are under way. Hunt Ventures LLC of Rogers, the owner of the land, is presently putting in utilities and a parking lot to aid in future development of the property.

Johnelle Hunt, widow of trucking magnate J.B. Hunt, is the primary owner of Hunt Ventures, a development group formerly known as The Pinnacle Group. Core has a deal virtually done to purchase a portion of the Trout Farm land from Hunt Ventures, and construction of its building should begin before the end of March.

Core will move before the end of the year, marking its second expansion since entering the market in 2006.

 

Better Service

Kelly (Helena), Graham (Springdale) and Langham (Fort Smith) all grew up in Arkansas, and each graduated from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

They met while working for another firm in Rogers — Kelly was the regional manager for the California-based company’s office, which is no longer here — when they decided to strike out on their own.

“We decided we could provide better service to our clients,” Kelly said. “The business model that they had wasn’t good for what the clients here deserve.”

Langham said the three also shared a vision of fully embracing a new approach to building design. Building information modeling, or BIM, utilizes software that creates three-dimensional modeling that can be incorporated into the design of projects.

The process helps prevent field delays or other problems during the life cycle of a project. Contractors and subcontractors, project owners and designers take a team approach to spatially coordinating and managing all building data of a particular project.

Traditional methods used by architects produce 2D drawings, often requiring extensive planning and coordination.

BIM leads to streamlined communication and front-end problem solving, while building projects faster and at less cost. The approach wasn’t very prevalent in 2006 in Northwest Arkansas among architects and contractors.

“Bob could see it coming — that BIM was going to kind of revolutionize the way architects work,” Langham said. “And it was something we were all interested in and wanted to move to. I think we were one of the first [Northwest Arkansas firms] to fully embrace it.”

 

Building a Niche

When Core opened for business — Kelly, Graham and Langham worked from a couple of offices in the J.B. Hunt Parkway Tower until moving into their current space in November 2007 — the principals weren’t unknown quantities. In fact, while working at their previous firm, they were part of the design team for Cross Church at Pinnacle Hills.

But the three men still had to prove themselves as Core Architects.

“It was a lot of hard work,” Kelly said. “I think all of our clients were cautious, but you have to prove yourself every day. You work on that every day.”

When asked what Core’s niche is, Kelly said the firm has strived to be diversified. Langham estimated that 25 percent of Core’s clients are in the corporate/office sector, 20 percent civic/municipal, 20 percent education, 15 percent health care, 10 percent retail and 10 percent in performance/venue.

Some of the company’s early projects included a pair of design-build medical centers along Horsebarn Road in Rogers — Benton County Surgical Associates and Mercy Clinic Ear, Nose & Throat — that were both finished by Clinard Construction Co. of Bentonville.

Core also designed the Pinnacle Center Four office building in 2008, one of a number of buildings and office finish-outs the company has drawn for Hunt Ventures, an owner-developer that has played a major role in the development of the Pinnacle Hills area.

John George, executive vice president of Hunt Ventures, said working with a local design firm is important.

“Customer service is not lost on them,” he said. “And the good thing for us is not only do they draw wonderful buildings that are economically feasible from a business standpoint, but they’re there every day during a project to manage the construction.”

Other notable projects include the renovation of the Bentonville City Hall facade in 2009 and the new home of the Arkansas Music Pavilion at the Washington County Fairgrounds last year. The company is also part of the design team collaborating on Founders Hall at the UA, a 78,000-SF residence hall and dining facility that will open this fall.

But perhaps Core’s most notable work is a comprehensive cancer care center in Rogers for Fayetteville-based Highlands Oncology Group. The 56,000-SF building, with glass, metal and brick exterior, was built by Crossland Construction and opened in 2011.

The two-story facility features open, modern architectural and interior design that is intended to make patients and their families more comfortable and relaxed.

“We wanted the type of center that would appeal to patients and make them feel peaceful when they walked in,” said Kathey Parker, the practice administrator at HOG. “With the help of Core and our interior designer, Julie Fryauf, we were able to accomplish that goal.”

Fryauf’s work earned an Excellence in Design Award by the South Central Chapter of the American Society of Interior Design.

Core’s work earned the company the Qualify of Life Award from the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce.

 

In the Pipeline         

Core’s new office building is one of three headline projects the company is rolling out this year in Pinnacle Hills. A 60,000-SF “Class A” office building is beginning to go vertical at 5708 Northgate Road, just south of Regions Bank.

The building, the first in the Pinnacle Heights addition, is owned by Hunt Ventures, and an undisclosed tenant has entered into a lease agreement for 26,000 SF. The two-story building is expected to be ready for occupancy in September.

Another is a medical clinic near Walgreen’s, about 11,000 SF.

The Core office building — a split-level design cut into the hillside on the first floor — is in an area that will likely be called Pinnacle Springs, George said. Graham said the Core offices would occupy about 5,000 SF, and HP Engineering Inc. — with offices in the same building as Core right now — will also be moving and take 5,000 SF.

Retail supplier tenants will fill the remaining space.

Kelly said moving into larger quarters will help the company’s future plans for growth, but he wants to be smart about it.

“There are firms who are higher along, who are real busy for a period, and then they have layoffs,” he said. “We’ve tried to select great talent, and then maintain a level of work where we can keep them. We’re producing a level of work, because of the efficiency of BIM, that we could be doing with 14 or 15 people. We’re doing it with 10. We’ll be very cautious about our growth.”