Architect Doug Demers has had a diverse career that includes working as a business strategist and real estate executive, positions that helped him land a position at global design firm HKS managing its first Pacific Northwest office.
The job Demers started last year as principal and director of the new HKS office in Seattle is also a sort of homecoming. He started his career in the early 1980s working in the design firm’s Dallas headquarters.
“I graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology, interviewed with the biggest firm in town which was HKS, and they hired me that afternoon,” Demers said in an interview. “I put all my stuff in the car, drove down to Dallas with my brother and started my new job.”
One of Demers’ first friends and coworkers in the industry, Dan Noble, eventually became one of HKS’ most prominent executives. Noble, who at the time worked in the studio next to Demer, also was just starting his career. Noble moved up the ranks to become president and CEO of HKS, one of the world’s largest architecture firms with 1,500 employees across 27 global offices.
“There were 10 of us that started within a month or two, and I became friends with Dan,” Demers said. It was a friendship that would turn out to help shape Noble’s later career.
Demers went on to work for other large design firms such as HOK, Perkins+Will and Callison, now CallisonRTKL, for the next 25 years before joining real estate brokerage Colliers. As a managing principal at Colliers, he founded the firm’s strategic planning and consulting practice in Seattle.
After several years in brokerage Demers returned to architecture in 2013, when he joined global firm B+H Architects in Seattle. A decade later, Demers, who had always stayed in touch with Noble, talked with the HKS executive about partnering with B+H on a couple of healthcare projects.
HKS had a number of longtime clients in the Pacific Northwest, despite not having a physical presence. The firm’s architects had designed several large projects in greater Seattle since the mid-1990s, including work for Seattle Children’s Hospital.
HKS had looked at several opportunities over the years to open an office in greater Seattle, home to Amazon, Microsoft and other large corporations, “but none of them fit quite right,” Demers said.
However, the Pacific Northwest was the only U.S. region where HKS didn’t have an office. That led to discussions with Noble about Demers rejoining HKS, the firm where both architects started their careers 40 years earlier.
“The right opportunity presented itself, and we simply couldn’t pass it up,” Noble said in a statement.
Architects Bryan Croeni, Christa Jansen and Joslyn Balzarini, who also worked for B+H, joined Demers in opening the new HKS Seattle office last summer.
“These were trusted relationships with people that made it easier for HKS to get their foot into the marketplace,” Demers said.
With 10 professionals in the new Seattle office and plans to add more, Demers expects the office to focus on hospitality, advanced manufacturing and mixed-use projects. He also plans to build the firm’s local portfolio with more projects in such growing real estate niches as health care, sports-related development, higher education and life science.
HKS is designing Lincoln Property’s proposed nine-story life science building at Fifth Avenue and John Street near Seattle Center. The firm also designed W Hotel Bellevue, a 245-room property on Lake Washington that opened in 2017.
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