Market voices: Architecture and design John Atkins, Chairman & CEO, O’Brien Atkins Associates, PA Teri Canada, Co-Founder & Managing Principal, Evoke Studio Gary Cline, President & Managing Principal, Cline Design Associates Jeff Paine, Co-Founder, Duda Paine Architects

John Atkins

Chairman & CEO O’Brien Atkins Associates, PA

Raleigh and Durham exceeded all expectations in their respective growth and development, especially their downtowns. Holly Springs is becoming highly attractive to a lot of investors and is “up and coming.” Cary blossomed in the ‘90s when it was one of the fastest-growing cities in America, and continues to be attractive. The Highway 64 Corridor leaving Raleigh and going to Chatham County and the Highway 1 Corridor from Apex and Holly Springs to Sanford, in my view, are upcoming locations that will extend the “boundaries” of the Triangle.

This area has a great pool of talent, which means there is a lot of competition in the industry. That’s a good thing for creative industries and allows for great architecture to be developed in the area. With Google and Apple joining us, there will be a lot of development happening in the next few years and we hope to be able to shape and mold that development into something that is thoughtful and meaningful. We want to enhance the Triangle area and speak to the history and culture of the place. I know most of the designers in the area share this ethos. Teri Canada

Co-Founder & Managing Principal Evoke Studio

Gary Cline

President & Managing Principal Cline Design Associates

The Triangle is very different from Charlotte. I came from the Charlotte firm, opening the Raleigh office in 1983. I love both locations but they’re very unique from each other. There are different political climates, entitlement processes, and regulations. Even the way in which local inspectors look at the exact same building code is completely different between the two cities. Raleigh and the Triangle are more cultural. They are college towns and include the state’s capital city. We have all the university sports while Charlotte is home to professional sports. In Raleigh, we are fortunate to attract and hire people from the Northeast and Midwest who are relocating to this ever growing and vibrant market.

People are starting to think more about the relationship between where they work and where they live. They’re looking for balance between home life and work life. If the pandemic has caused one thing, it’s made people prioritize that balance. I believe people will come back to the office for things like collaboration and being with their friends by the water cooler, but I also think people want proximity in relation to where they work. That is a major driver of the rise in new mixed-use projects in our cities. People seek the culture, convenience and social environment that comes with urban locations. Developers recognize these trends and want to address them. Jeff Paine

Co-Founder Duda Paine Architects

( ) particularly joist and deck, pricing started to rise rapidly during the first quarter of 2020. Early on, we saw over 200% increases in some building products in less than 6 months,” Messer Construction Co. Vice President and Raleigh Region Leader Robert Williams told Invest:. “Classifying the construction as essential coupled with the strong life sciences ecosystem allowed capital to flow in the Triangle market. We did see life science and technology projects advance. Investment capital continued to come from other areas of the country, primarily from the Northeast and Midwest, as developers continued to focus on the Raleigh-Durham area. In our case, we have been able to move forward on a couple of developer-led projects that will probably have life science and tech customers,” Williams said.

The sharp rise in prices is mostly connected to shortages of factory workers in conjunction with supply chain disruptions from national and international shutdowns and unexpected events such as the two-week blockade of the Suez Canal in March and the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack that left a great swath of Southeastern states scrambling for gas for a few days in May. However, the industry expectation is that material prices will level out during the second half of 2021. As such, closely monitoring the supply chain, strong local partnerships and constant communication with project partners will be crucial as the industry recovers.

“Strong partnerships with local subcontractors give us ongoing direct insight into the North Carolina market and supply chain along with an understanding of their perspectives, track pricing, and availability. Close cooperation allowed us to develop efficient solutions to keep our projects going and communicate effectively with our clients to facilitate decisions based

Developers from around the country have been focused on increasing investment in the Raleigh-Durham area.