CEO Bradley Thomas of Grand Rapids-based
Progressive AE says the recently announced merger between his firm and the Charlotte, North Carolina based
ai Design Group was a decision nearly five years in the making.
The 54-year-old full service architecture and design firm has always made a point to be in a number of diversified markets to ensure workload stability. However, it was about five years ago when they realized that not only was the firm outgrowing the West Michigan region, but it had such a high concentration of clients the firm might not achieve the level of stability for which it was looking.
“We’ve never seen as many markets cycle together as they did in 2008, and despite working all over the U.S., we still had a very high concentration of clients in the Midwest…(we) had too many eggs in one basket, so to speak, so we wanted to be part of another retail economy outside of the U.S.,” says Thomas, whose firm has been behind a number of high-profile projects that include the Grand Rapids Downtown Market, DeVos Place Convention Center, Frederick Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, and the Grand Rapids Art Museum, the first LEED certified art museum in the nation.
The other key driver behind the merger was finding a larger pool of talent to draw from, since talent, Thomas says, is one of “the most critical ingredients” to Progressive AE’s success.
“We needed access to a deeper talent pool, growth into a region where we could access a deeper talent pool was a secondary driver to wanting to expand a deeper footprint,” he says.
So, he set out to find a good match, using industry factors like population growth and other markets that indicated cultural similarities between a firm’s location and the Grand Rapids/West Michigan area, looking for a firm that was similar in size and scope, while still offering opportunities to expand into new sectors of the marketplace.
“We wanted there to be some overlap in some of the markets, but at the same time we were also looking for a partner that we may be able to sell some of the things we do into their business to help deepen their portfolio and expertise and allow us to grow into their new marketplace,” Thomas says.
They settled on ai Design Group, a young firm with about 13 years of experience in the industry in a time of solid growth, looking forward to opportunities to provide additional infrastructure and expertise in new markets for them while they offer a new talent pool and expert leadership to Progressive AE.
“The leadership there is already very strong — this isn’t a situation where we need to move people from here to there to ‘take over,’ so to speak. They have all of the leadership capabilities to grow and lead their business,” Thomas says, adding that though ai Design Group will take on the name Progressive AE, both organizations will continue to operate out of their current offices and leadership structures of both organizations will remain intact.
“They’re an architecture and interiors business, we’re a full-service business, so now we’re just going to begin to figure out how to integrate best practices across the firms and how we begin to cross markets,” he says. “As we begin to grow and provide services across markets, some of that growth may very well happen in charlotte and some may happen in Grand Rapids as we look to figure out how we best serve one another.”
For more information on Progressive AE and the recent merger, visit www.progressiveae.com.
Written by Anya Zentmeyer, Development News Editor
Images courtesy of Progressive AE/ai Design Group
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.