ARCHITECTURE: HDR expanding San Diego presence

DESIGN: Architecture Studio to Open in Mission Valley

HDR, a design and engineering firm based in Nebraska, is increasing its Southern California operations by opening an architecture studio in Mission Valley.

“We have long been looking at how to expand in San Diego. It just seems like it's the right time and we have a great support system within our Los Angeles studio,” said Valerie DeLoach, an education and science associate principal, who will head the San Diego office.

Joining DeLoach is Michael Street, a senior health planning principal who will focus on healthcare design projects in San Diego.

HDR's engineering arm has had an office in Mission Valley for more than 30 years, but DeLoach said that the San Diego design work has been handled primarily by the firm's Los Angeles architecture studio.

“The goal of us moving down here is really to be able to better serve our clients in the San Diego area and to have boots on the ground, as you would say, and to bring our global expertise that really had that local presence and being engaged directly with the community,” DeLoach said.

As a hub for life science companies in the U.S, “We know that San Diego is going to continue to grow. We want to be a part of designing that growth,” DeLoach said. “For me, also, just being an architect that's really interested in urban design, I find that San Diego is just a ripe for the opportunity to develop into a really beautiful city and having HDR with our connections between the transit and the water business groups. We are here, and I think we're really committed to making San Diego just a really wonderful city and being part of that planning.”

The firm's engineering work in San Diego has included program management on SANDAG'S Mid-Coast Corridor

Transit Project that extended the Metropolitan Transit System

Trolley to UTC and the University of California San Diego.

“It started with projects for

North County Transportation

District and then once we started doing those, which were basically on the L.A.-San Diego corridor, the rail corridor between here and Los Angeles, and then expanded into work for SANDAG and MTS (Metropolitan Transit System) and now the Port of San Diego and the airport,” said Michael Grubstein, HDR transportation project manager. “We do a lot on our water side. We are leading a stormwater program for the city.” ■