david goldberg, aia
mithun, seattle
www.mithun.com age of firm: 61 years
firm specialty: Multifamily residential, mixed-use, and community master planning
staff: 149 (2005); 212 at beginning of year, 189 at end (2008); 105 (end of 2009); Unknown (2010)
total revenue: $29 million (2005); $32 million (2008); $18 million (2009); Unknown (2010)
completed projects: Withheld (firm does not calculate)
At Seattle-based Mithun, work continued to slow throughout 2009 as private funding for developer-led projects dried up. But the firm followed the money to housing authorities doing mixed-income urban communities—three in Denver and two in Washington—who needed early design drawings from which to secure federal or state funding. Also on the boards is farm worker housing in Washington and workforce housing in Jackson Hole, Wyo., for a not-for-profit organization receiving government money.
On the planning side, developers have money for feasibility studies and entitlements, but not for building, says David Goldberg, AIA, Mithun’s managing principal. “A lot of developers’ hands are tied and they are waiting for things to change.” However, transit-oriented development (TOD) is continuing apace. Mithun is working on TODs in Baltimore and San Francisco and a large mixed-use, mixed-income project in Austin, Texas. But the waiting game continues. Developers are waiting for prices on existing buildings and shovel-ready projects to drop in order to snap them up and reposition them for a changed market—a condo turned into seniors housing, for example, or flipped to apartments. “There’s still big demand for rental buildings in these cities, especially if people can’t afford to purchase condos,” Goldberg says. “We’re expecting to see a strong rebound in that area.”
Echoing the sentiments of his peers across the country, Goldberg adds: “There is a lot of work out there that needs to be done; it’s just a matter of when people are going to be able to pull the trigger. It could be this week, or another year or more. We just don’t know.”