Featured Project: Harkins Headquarters

Originally from Harkins Header, March 2017

How do you like it?  It’s the number one question people ask us about our new headquarters office in Columbia. Our answer: We love it.

A recent survey measuring employee satisfaction with the physical and environmental aspects of our new space on nearly 20 metrics confirms our anecdotal observations – we are very happy in our new space. A company that three years ago was change-and-risk-averse has reorganized and relocated to a completely different kind of office space in a completely different neighborhood. How did we do it?

Knowingly out of our depth, we hired The Verve Partnership to design our new office and guide us through this endeavor. Managing Principal Kelly Ennis and her team were exceptional, and I believe the final product exceeded all of our expectations.
–  Gary Garofalo, President COO, Harkins Builders

As Dick and Gary have shared in their columns over the last couple of years, we at Harkins have been reinventing ourselves to be even better construction managers and partners for our next 50 years. We have redefined our corporate structure and redesigned our internal working relationships, particularly between estimating and construction. This internal realignment is designed to provide our clients with better expertise in preconstruction and provide our field teams with a more seamless transition of information and knowledge.

As we redefined Harkins, we realized that there were direct implications for the physical design of our office. We needed to create an environment that encouraged more interaction and collaboration. Rigid preconstruction and construction departments on two separate floors, with some field staff working in the basement, was not going to contribute to the success of our new organization. Starting with the assumption that we would reconfigure our Marriottsville office, we engaged The Verve Partnership to study our culture, our aspirations, and our space utilization needs.

The Verve conducted interviews and exercises to capture and define the essence of our culture and our goals for the future. They then created several space plan studies utilizing our building in new and very different ways. Key aspects of the new work environment would include the integration of all members of the company and all levels of the hierarchy in much less traditional space organizations. Workspaces could be smaller and more efficient, and rapid advances in technology demanded more technology, and much less paper. To foster more collaboration and interaction, it became imperative that we move toward an open work environment. Collaboration areas were deemed to have very high importance and a wide variety of space designs became necessary to accommodate the interactions we sought to encourage.

After much study, it became clear that the physical limitations of the Marriottsville office were restricting what we could accomplish. Furthermore, renovating in place would require us to either temporarily relocate all or part of the company, or to conduct a very long and painful phased renovation. The decision was made to evaluate sites for permanent relocation, and compare advantages, disadvantages, disruptions and costs. After many weeks of site visits, proposals, and study, the decision was made to move.

Moving gave us the opportunity to address another shortcoming of the Marriottsville location: its remoteness. In Marriottsville there were few resources and amenities to serve our team – none of the energy and services of an urban environment. Our employees deserved more, and to continue recruiting the best and the brightest we had to rethink the environment surrounding the office we wanted.

From a short list of possible relocation sites, the fourth floor of 60 Columbia Corporate Center in downtown Columbia was chosen. It puts us closer to many of our industry partners, consultants, clients and vendors. Columbia has a great vibe and a growing energy, and there are lots of amenities. In retrospect it seems like the only choice, but it was subject to significant debate as the possibilities were winnowed.

With a completely blank slate of 20,000 sf to work on, The Verve stepped up and led us through many design studies. This path took us through the “Valley of Fear.” How in the world would an open work environment, with noise and interruptions and little privacy work for our company? We made visits to other open office environments and debated and debated and debated. Eventually a compromise won out. There would be team rooms that division leaders and preconstruction managers could use as their offices, and there would be an abundance of meeting, private work, and phone call spaces. Most of the Harkins team would work in open work spaces, with design attention being paid to acoustics and some amount of privacy. From April through June the construction drawings were developed, and from July through September, while the permits were processed, furniture selections and specifications were finalized. Construction commenced September 6th, the day after Labor Day, with a move target of December 3rd. Despite some coordination and layout issues not recognized during design, some material lead time delays, and other normal construction issues, the members of our Commercial Group got the work done.

Meanwhile, we worked through the summer toward an 80% paperless operation. Accounting, administrative, and construction departments all accelerated their implementation of Viewpoint, Docusign, Kofax, and Procore software programs, and launched an intensive scanning operation that digitized precious information and saved valuable space. We gave away almost 200 filing cabinets, and are now using only eight lateral file cabinets in our new office.

We opened our office at 10490 Little Patuxent Parkway at 8 a.m. on Monday, December 5th, fully operational, with all internet connections, phones, and workspaces ready to go. A welcome breakfast was donated by our new neighbor, Whole Foods Markets, and many other local restaurants and service providers have donated food, gift cards, or coupons to every office employee to make us feel welcome. Like any new homeowner, we still have a little decorating to do, and we are eagerly anticipating the installation of our new logo design on the front of the building. But by now we’re quite settled into our new space and our new way of working with each other. We hope we have the chance to collaborate with you here in our new home.