Steve Adams
S/L/A/M Collaborative is going bicoastal as it brings a Los Angeles-area architecture firm under its corporate umbrella.
The Glastonbury-headquartered architects have merged with Frank Webb Architects, a Culver City, California firm that has a strong presence in the health care sector with clients including Kaiser Permanente. S/L/A/M Collaborative was in talks with the firm for over a year as it sought to fulfill its goal of adding a West Coast office, S/L/A/M Collaborative President Robert Pulito said.
“We had been looking to merge and acquire firms for several years with the right culture and the right location and the right market mix,” Pulito said. “These guys were perfect.”
Under the merger, which took effect Sept. 1, Frank Webb’s 17 employees join the S/L/A/M organization, bringing total headcount to approximately 220 employees. Frank Webb President Gregory Coles joins the executive team at S/L/A/M Collaborative.
The firm has acquired companies in Massachusetts, New York and Georgia in the past to expand its geographic reach. Its latest expansion will make it easier to compete for major projects on a national scale, Pulito said. S/L/A/M currently has about a dozen West Coast clients in the university and corporate sectors.
“Getting to understand the culture and adding a national perspective is what clients are looking for,” Pulito said. “They expect you to have a broad perspective of the industry.”
Both firms have a strong practice in the health care and higher education sectors, he noted. Frank Webb has experience designing projects for University of Southern California and the University of California at Los Angeles. S/L/A/M Collaborative designed Sacred Heart University’s new Pierre Toussaint residence hall, Eastern Connecticut State University’s new fine arts center, redevelopment of Hartford’s Weaver High School and updates to public spaces at University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.
“For us, it’s a big step and it’ll have a huge impact on our plans to have a platform on the West Coast,” Pulito said.
The firm was founded in 1976 as Stecker & LaBau and expanded its New England operations in 1988 through a merger with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Ondras Assoc. The Cambridge office relocated to Boston in 2005, and S/L/A/M established an Atlanta office in 1997 after acquiring Mainstreet Architects.
S/L/A/M Collaborative hopes to make an additional one or two acquisitions in the next year and is focusing on firms in the western half of the U.S., Pulito said.
