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M U N I C I P A L P R A C T I C E
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Two thousand sixteen was another exciting year for the Municipal Practice. We witnessed
significant growth in our St. Louis office highlighted by the hire of a new Principal in the Municipal
Practice, Josh Mandell, who brings significant experience and new business relationships to FGM.
Continuing our successful run of new project types in southern Illinois, we now have a combined
fire and police facility under construction in Edwardsville, are designing a combined police and
fire facility in Lincoln, and have recently won a combined Village Hall, police and fire facility in
Roxanna (that we originally submitted on in 2011). Collaboration between our St. Louis, O’Fallon,
Chicago and Oak Brook offices has been essential to the successful pursuit, winning, production
and ultimately completion of these projects for our clients. I am very proud and thankful of the
effort we have put in together to successfully deliver these projects.
On business development front, the strategy of highlighting our interiors capabilities has resulted
in many successful Grand Openings this past year. We have received compliments not only from
the clients whom these projects are designed for, but also from others in the industry who have
visited these facilities! The focus we have placed in regional marketing efforts for our Public
Safety work is starting to take hold with partnerships developing with local firms in Wisconsin,
Indiana and potentially Texas. We have won and completed many space needs and master
planning studies again this past year, and have seen the fruits of this labor with projects such as
a Basic Services Agreement for the new City of St. Charles police station recently awarded to
FGM without having to go through an RFQ/RFP process.
Financial performance in the Municipal Practice was steady last year, with a slight dip in our
profitability and net revenue. We have had a few staff changes, with some staff with significant
municipal experience leaving the firm and others joining (or returning) to the Municipal Practice.
While we have tried to minimize that impact on our projects, we will continue to monitor our
profitability and improve our results through project planning, forecasting and coaching efforts.
V I S I O N
FGM’s Municipal Practice continues to strive to achieve our vision of becoming the architect of
choice for high quality planning and design projects in our core civic, public safety and
recreation markets and a trusted advisor for our clients. FGM’s Municipal Practice provides
Architectural services in multiple sub-markets generally be grouped into the following
categories:
Civic
Municipal Buildings – City Halls, Village Halls, Township buildings, County Administration
buildings, Public Works structures, targeted Libraries and other miscellaneous projects.
While the concept of “Municipal Architect” is uncommon with Municipalities, we strive to
build long term relationships with quality clients and encourage referrals. Building on our
impressive resume of Village Hall projects, continued success in the municipal market
would entail winning and designing other high profile projects, especially City/Village Hall
buildings.