Last year, California opened 10,793 hotel rooms, a record for the state according to Atlas Hospitality Group. California has 859 hotels and 125,749 rooms in various stages of planning. In Los Angeles alone, where 4,309 hotel rooms opened last year, there are another 5,327 rooms under construction.
Those projects include Soho Warehouse, a major renovation, designed by Killefer Flammang Architects, of a six-story 100-year building in L.A.’s Arts District; and the boutique Hoxton Hotel, a $30 million renovation, designed by GREC Architects, of a 10-story building along the city’s downtown Broadway corridor that dates back to 1925.
Shawmut Design and Construction is handling the construction management for both of these hotels. The growth of Los Angeles’ hospitality sector has become a driving force behind the expansion of Shawmut’s L.A. office, designed by Gensler, which recently added 2,400 sf and is now 15,000 sf.
Shawmut has been doing business in L.A. since 1995, and moved into its first office, on Wilshire Boulevard, in February 2013. It relocated to its current office, west side of the city, in February 2016. Over the past three years, revenue generated by Shawmut’s L.A. office increased by 61%, and its staff by 92% to its current level of 123 employees.
“Originally, we set up an office here to serve our existing clients that were expanding,” says Vincent Spataro, an 11-year Shawmut veteran who moved to L.A. in 2014 to help grow this office as its director. “As time went on, we’ve hired local staff and developed a local client base.”
Shawmut positions its services in California as being selective about the projects it takes on. “We aren’t the lowest-priced bidder here, so we focus more on the higher end.” Its work in the restaurant and retail sectors, for example, includes Nobu Malibu and Louis Vuitton’s Rodeo Drive flagship.
Eighteen months ago, the office launched a Luxury Homes division, an offshoot of residential construction it had been doing as a service for its commercial clients. “It’s a meaningful move for us,” Les Hiscoe, Shawmut’s CEO, told the Beverly Hills Courier. Spataro says this division manages the construction of one-off houses whose costs range from $1,000 to $2,000 per sf. “These are on another scale, and often have commercial-type systems” that Shawmut’s experience can serve, he explains.
More recently, Shawmut launched a national Interiors division, which Spataro says will bring to office design what the firm has brought to retail and restaurants.
Spataro says the future growth of his office will most likely come from hospitality and interiors. Shawmut L.A. is also looking to expand the typologies it handles to include institutional and academic projects, which have been robust areas for the firm’s New England office.
Related Stories
| Dec 22, 2014
What Building Teams can learn from home builders' travails
Commercial and residential construction can be as different as night and day. But as one who covered the housing industry for nearly a decade, I firmly believe AEC firms can learn some valuable lessons from the trials and tribulations that home builders experienced during the Great Recession, writes BD+C's John Caulfield.
| Dec 22, 2014
Skanska to build Miami’s Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science
Designed by Grimshaw Architects, the 250,000-sf museum will serve as an economic engine and cultural anchor for Miami’s fast-growing urban core.
| Dec 22, 2014
Studio Gang to design Chicago’s third-tallest skyscraper
The first U.S. real-estate investment by The Wanda Group, owned by China’s richest man, will be an 88-story, 1,148-ft-tall mixed-use tower designed by Jeanne Gang.
| Dec 19, 2014
Zaha Hadid unveils dune-shaped HQ for Emirati environmental management company
Zaha Hadid Architects released designs for the new headquarters of Emirati environmental management company Bee’ah, revealing a structure that references the shape and motion of a sand dune.
| Dec 18, 2014
International Parking Institute and Green Parking Council collaborate with GBCI
The new collaboration recognizes importance of sustainable parking facility design and management to the built environment.
| Dec 18, 2014
In response to ultra-open and uber-collaborative office environments
Susan Cain’s bestselling 2012 book, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking" has made an impact on how we understand our current workforce, recognizing that at least one-third of the people we work with are introverts, writes SRG Partnership's Susan Gust.
| Dec 17, 2014
USGBC announces 2014 Best of Green Schools honorees
Houston's Monarch School was named the K-12 school of the year, and Western Michigan University was honored as the top higher-ed institution, based on environmental programs and education efforts.
| Dec 17, 2014
ULI report looks at growing appeal of micro unit apartments
New research from the Urban Land Institute suggests that micro units have staying power as a housing type that appeals to urban dwellers in high-cost markets who are willing to trade space for improved affordability and proximity to downtown neighborhoods.
| Dec 17, 2014
Demand softens, but outlook for Architecture Billings Index remains positive
The AIA's Architecture Billings Index for November was 50.9, down from a mark of 53.7 in October. Despite the drop, the ABI continued its seven-month run of positive scores (above 50).
Sponsored | | Dec 16, 2014
Quadcopters save project team $15K in warranty work
On a recent trip to see what technology Todd Wynne and the rest of the team at Rogers-O’Brien Construction have been tinkering with, I had a chance to experience firsthand which new hardware innovations will one day be applied in the AEC space.
