New name reflects architecture firm’s identity

ALBANY — Architects Paul Scoville and Randy Collins have been familiar names on the blueprints for many major public building projects in the region over the past 16 years.

A few months ago, however, changing market opportunities seemed to make the time right for Scoville+Collins Architects to craft a new name, the partners said.

Marketing firm Write Edge Communications helped polish the image, but the new identity that emerged in November, “CSArch Architecture/Construction Management,” was a natural evolution, according to Collins.

The new name is meant to tie their initials to the strength, durability and natural grace of the classic arch famous from the builders of ancient Rome.

It also incorporates the twin elements the partners say sets them apart from many firms.

In-house construction management already represents about 20 percent of CSArch’s business model, Collins said.

Nearly $300 million of the $1 billion worth of public building projects the firm has handled involved managing the construction of their designs, he said.

“Our new name better reflects the firm we have become over our 16 years in business,” according to Scoville.

Scoville and Collins also just added two other principal directors, Daniel Woodside and Richard Peckham.

A visitor expecting a room full of draftsmen hunched over slanted drawing tables and wielding T-squares and compasses clearly hasn’t been around architectural offices in a few decades.

At least one drawing table is tucked in a corner, but it doesn’t get much use.

Technicians and architects have long done most of their work on computers, designing buildings with the help of modeling programs that can offer clients various alternatives.

On a recent day at the newly expanded headquarters at 40-50 Beaver St. in downtown Albany, design architect Ron Bagoly displayed three-dimensional computer models of a new YMCA in Coxsackie the firm is working on.

Depending on the complexity, such models take from a couple of days to a week to develop, he said.

They allow clients to be able to see various alternatives, complete with accurate time-of-day lighting and other details, according to Scoville.

“I still do some drawing,” Scoville said, but mostly just quick sketches to convey an idea to be developed.

The open and airy 1,900-square-foot complex of three design studios includes a new studio in expanded space that flows directly into the older studios and offices in a building next door.

Many of the firm’s 32 licensed architects and about 50 other staffers work in partially open cubicles arranged neatly throughout the two floors of CSArch’s headquarters.

High ceilings in the 1870s-era building at 40 Beaver St. are open to the natural pine planks overhead. Silvery heating and ventilation tubes and pipes seem, appropriately, like a work in progress.

CSArch’s branch office in Newburgh is also expanding its design studio in a former warehouse building near the Hudson River to meet the growing workload of school projects boosted by increased state building aid.

In a business closely linked to economic cycles, CSArch’s specialization in school buildings has gotten a nice boost over the past year or so as many school districts in the region are taking advantage of millions of dollars in extra aid available through the Expanding Children’s Education and Learning program.

Public school projects were already 90 percent of their business, Collins said, “but the EXCEL work has increased the volume.”

“We’ve nearly doubled our revenue from the previous year,” he said. That increase is “partly attributed to the amount of work.”

The company’s revenue in the year ending Oct. 31, 2007, was about $16.9 million, according to Collins. The average over the preceding three years was about $9 million, he said.

Additional government aid for schools is not the only reason CSArch has enlarged its Albany headquarters and Newburgh offce. Part of the reason, Scoville notes, is that the Hudson Valley has seen a building boom, partly as New York City companies and residents looked upriver after the shock of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the city.

Ironically, the former Collins+Scoville firm, which had grown from the two founders in Albany to a busy staff of 80, had to cut back to about half that staff for a while as the economy absorbed the impact of the Twin Towers’ collapse.

Hudson Valley growth

But as things settled out, Newburgh and other mid-Hudson communities continued a resurgence that had already started in the late 1990s.

“The waterfront in Newburgh is reawakening,” Scoville said. With a passenger ferry taking commuters across the Hudson to the MetroNorth train station in Beacon, people are living in Orange County while riding the rails to their daily jobs in the Big Apple.

Bars and restaurants are springing up along the waterfront, he said, to cater to the commuter traffic.

The architects are also expanding their reach to Long Island, according to Collins. Long-term plans include the possibility of opening branch offices on Long Island, as well as in the Syracuse area, he said.

Their concentration on school facilities has also benefited from another quirk of timing.

Many of the schools in the region now have buildings that haven’t had much improvement work in 30 years or more, Collins noted.

Some buildings were originally constructed in the 1930s, under the federal Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. Another wave was built for the baby boom generation of the 1950s through the 1970s.

“By the 1990s there were two generations of school buildings that were either 30 or 60 years old,” Collins said.

“They’re wearing out,” added Scoville. “And they weren’t designed for today’s students.”

Energy efficiency is a priority, and new wiring demands for computer networks must be met, Scoville said.

School libraries are becoming “media centers.”

Girls are playing a much more active role in sports, requiring new facilities and locker rooms.

On top of that, gyms are shifting toward becoming community-based fitness centers, he said.

“The concept is toward lifelong fitness,” Scoville notes.

For architects and construction managers long focused on designing school complexes, the timing perhaps couldn’t be much better to build on their experience.

Discussing CSArch’s addition to an elementary school building on the St. Regis Mohawk tribal community at Akwesasne in northern New York, Scoville dug out some design sketches to illustrate the point.

Combining elements

As an Indian cultural center, the complex incorporated community rooms for traditional arts and music, as well as design elements. A turtle clan symbol was blended into the tile and a wampum belt design adorned the exterior.

The buildings are community centers and lifelong learning facilities, Scoville said.

Other schools around the Capital Region are also now blending such elements into new facilities.

The construction management element of CSArch helps coordinate the completion of the project, said Collins, who holds a degree in the speciality from Utica College.

As specialists in school construction, the firm also puts a lot of time into helping school districts through the funding maze to meet various requirements of state aid, according to Collins.

They also help explain the projects to the public, since school districts generally must also get their plans approved by a vote of district taxpayers.

The firm claims a 93 percent track record of success with such referendums, according to Collins.

Focusing on schools “was a conscious decision when we started our firm,” he said.

With the necessity for state and voter approval typically part of the process, taxpayers need to be convinced that “it is an investment in the community,” Scoville added.

While the firm also has business and corporate clients, including Hannaford supermarkets, “we love doing schools,” said Collins. “It makes you feel great at the end of the day that you’ve done something worthwhile.”

Scoville notes that his first major project happened to be the renovation of the second floor of the state Education Department building in Albany in 1992.

The master plan for the LaSalle School for Boys in Troy followed the same year, “and we’re still working with them,” he said.

A poster celebrating CSArch’s new name includes a long list of regional projects, including school buildings in Ballston Spa, Bethlehem, Albany, Cobleskill-Richmondville, Saratoga, Gloversville, Schalmont, Albany Law School, SUNY-Cobleskill, the University at Albany and many more.

A photo on the poster of their 2002 addition to the Wynantskill school library addition combines a black and white exterior with a colorful interior under a curved arch built into the structure.

The poster echoes CSArch’s view of design with these words: “An arch, by its very nature, requires each of its elements to hold it together. Every segment must work in perfect unison to create a structure of strength and solidity that stands the test of time.”

“School boards and administrators really want to work with local architects,” Collins said.

Both partners have strong regional roots.

Scoville, 61, is an Albany resident born in Schenectady. He recalls working from about fifth grade for his grandfather Reno Scoville, a roofing contractor.

The interest in building led to an architecture degree from Syracuse University in 1970.

Collins, 49, now living in Rotterdam, has roots in the Schoharie County farming region around Seward and Sharon Springs. He grew up in Herkimer County. He studied drafting in high school and originally considered going into landscape architecture, Collins graduated from Utica College in 1983.