SmithGroup Thrives by Putting Clients First

Based in 1853, structure/engineering agency SmithGroup is constant to flourish with 20 places of work throughout the U.S., 1,500 workers and a presence within the Midwest that goes again to the agency’s earliest days.

The longest frequently working structure/engineering agency within the nation that isn’t a completely owned subsidiary, it was based as an architectural observe in 1853 in Ohio by Sheldon Smith, who moved the agency to Detroit in 1855. Engineering was added to its companies within the early 1900s by Smith’s grandson, Fred Smith. Quick ahead to the 2000s and the agency, after going via a few mergers that prolonged its attain to the East and West coasts and a few identify modifications, reverted to its SmithGroup moniker in 2018.

Answering Altering Wants

By increasing its companies to satisfy the ever-evolving wants of its purchasers, the Detroit-headquartered agency has seen its income develop within the Midwest and nationally. Its Midwest income elevated to just about $104 million in 2024 from $90.7 million in 2023. Its nationwide income soared to $440 million final 12 months from $362 million within the prior 12 months.

Roxanne Malik, managing associate, says the agency’s nationwide income has tripled during the last 10 years, which she attributes to its emphasis on understanding and assembly their purchasers’ aims.

“The driving force of how we’ve gotten to the place we’re is by being actually targeted on fixing our shopper’s greatest challenges, whether or not that’s vitality consumption or house utilization [or other challenges],” Malik says.

Whereas it has welcomed progress, Malik says SmithGroup’s success shouldn’t be all about driving income, however about extending engagement with purchasers and fixing their wants, which can transcend conventional structure.

“It’s been actually about fixing these better challenges [of clients] and making ourselves extra succesful by offering the extra companies that our purchasers are on the lookout for,” she says.

The companies the agency at the moment presents embody campus planning, civil engineering, vitality and environmental planning, well being technique, historic preservation, info and communications expertise, lab planning, mobility, programming, structural engineering, innovation and expertise, analysis and sustainability.

Its core markets are well being care, schooling, science, expertise and office. Smaller markets embody city design and cultural or museum work.

“What’s saved us actually important is that now we have a pleasant mix throughout these totally different markets,” Malik says. “In order one ebbs and flows, we’re capable of actually steadiness our workload.”

“SmithGroup is an professional at mixing excessive design with sensible and pragmatic  execution.”

—Jason Harris, Senior Design Supervisor for Infrastructure and Company Citizenship, Normal Motors 

Power consumption is a sizzling space, in keeping with Malik, who says purchasers are asking SmithGroup for assist to cut back their vitality footprint, which prompted the agency so as to add companies focused to that want.

“We’ve fashioned a bunch referred to as Influence that’s our built-in multidisciplinary efficiency analytics staff,” Malik says. “They assist purchasers ask the fitting questions after which create a grasp plan for them to unravel their vitality challenges.”

The agency additionally has created a Higher Constructing Challenges group that works with builders and academic establishments to grasp their property and suggest options to reduce their vitality consumption.

Tim Tracey, Midwest area director, says having experience in a spread of companies has fueled its regional progress. One other pillar of the agency’s success is its emphasis on constructing long-term relationships with purchasers.

“As a result of we’ve been right here such a very long time, we’ve labored with purchasers over a protracted interval, and we’re capable of do quite a lot of totally different tasks for a similar shopper,” he says.

SmithGroup tapped into its a number of disciplines to design facilities at Toldeo Class Metropolis Metropark, together with an out of doors live performance house. The park was constructed on 300 acres of underutilized land alongside the Maumee River in Toledo.
Picture courtesy of Toledo Metroparks

Historic Partnership

A type of long-time relationships is with Normal Motors—a partnership that’s over a century previous.

The agency’s current work with GM targeted on a spread of tasks throughout their Technical Heart Campus in Warren, Mich., together with Design West, a 360,000-sq-ft automotive design heart that opened in 2024 and homes design studios for Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac.

Jason Harris, senior design supervisor for infrastructure and company citizenship for GM, says SmithGroup’s different areas of experience are a plus.

“SmithGroup demonstrated an impressive mix of technical experience, professionalism and collaborative spirt all through the multiyear Campus Transformation Program on the GM International Technical Heart Campus,” Harris says. “Their potential to handle complicated venture necessities and coordinate successfully throughout numerous stakeholder teams was instrumental in driving this system ahead.”

He says that SmithGroup labored alongside GM’s program management and senior management “to create the imaginative and prescient of the brand new areas being constructed or remodeled, together with creation of latest workplace Office Tips and a brand new International Design Studio.”

Harris provides that “SmithGroup is an professional at mixing excessive design with sensible and pragmatic execution.”

SmithGroup’s designs helped earn group help for the Toldeo Glass Metropolis Metropark, which now attracts 1000’s of tourists.
Picture courtesy of Toledo Metroparks

Toledo Metropark

One other venture that tapped into SmithGroup’s numerous areas of experience is the $38-million Glass Metropolis Metropark, a 70-acre city greenspace in Toledo that additionally contains a 9,500-sq-ft restaurant and help constructing, a 5,000-sq-ft occasion facility, nature-themed play areas and a 1,000-ft-long path for ice skating or curler skating referred to as the Ribbon.

Tracey says the venture, which is on the positioning of a former coal-fired energy plant on the Maumee River, was an “alternative for us to convey our built-in design staff [and not only do] the sitework, however the panorama structure and designing the buildings right down to the lighting and the interiors.”

The venture confirmed that “our groups are able to difficult one another throughout disciplines,” he says. “The spirit of the venture was actually thrilling to me.”

“To completely recognize the place we began on this venture, you must know that there have been many different proposals that got here and went during the last 30 years,” says Dave Zenk, govt director of MetroParks Toledo. “None of them materialized. When the park system had the chance to rework the riverfront, we knew we needed to suppose massive. That’s after we reached out to SmithGroup.”

Zenk says no small plans would do. “It couldn’t simply be any park,” he says. “To interact the group and collaborators, we needed to first encourage them. SmithGroup’s designs introduced the wow issue we wanted to tell apart this venture from something our area had ever skilled.”

The park opened in 2023 and had 1,000,000 guests within the first 18 months.

“The domino impact of private and non-private funding adjoining to the park and enhancements within the surrounding areas have exceeded what most individuals anticipated,” Zenk says.

Along with these tasks, SmithGroup’s Midwest regional places of work—in Detroit, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Madison, Wis., and Milwaukee—work in partnership on tons of of tasks.

One other instance of the agency’s current work is Michigan State College’s Multicultural Heart, which accomplished in January 2025. One other is the $68-million Martin Luther King Neighborhood Heart, an 85,000-sq-ft recreation and well being clinic in Racine, Wis. A earlier venture renovated the Edsel and Eleanor Ford Home Customer Heart and Administration Constructing in Grosse Pointe, Mich., which earned a dozen nationwide, regional and native awards.

Trying Ahead

Tracey says whilst SmithGroup has grown, “it has tried to remain very nimble in order that we may be responsive.”

“We’re not making an attempt to construct various kinds of tasks,” Malik says. “We’re making an attempt to construct relationships with totally different purchasers that lead us to various kinds of tasks and the place we may help them.”