LandDesign Expands Its Base Nationally

Charlotte, N.C. — Reflecting its longstanding commitment to innovative design solutions and “creating places that matter,” landscape architecture and civil engineering firm LandDesign has expanded to three new U.S. markets in the last five years, bringing the firm to six offices nationally. The firm said it has emerged as one of the largest and most influential of its kind and a U.S. leader in master-planned communities, public spaces, mixed-use districts and parks, among other sectors.

Based in Charlotte, the firm has added regional offices since 2015 in Orlando, Fla., San Francisco, and Boulder, Colo. The firm’s Dallas office opened six years ago and now employs 16 professionals active in designing some of the region’s most high-profile community developments, advancing revenue growth up a third over that time.

Firmwide, LandDesign’s revenues have increased through organic growth more than 60% over the last five years — with no acquisitions — as it added more than 50 people to bring the firm to its current headcount of about 160 employees nationally.

“Fueled by our own passion and vision for improving communities, this expansion has made LandDesign more accessible to our nationally active clientele,” says Rhett Crocker, president. “The firm now operates collaboratively across all six offices, increasing efficiency and bringing our clients the ability to leverage talent throughout the firm for truly multidisciplinary design services.”

Demonstrating its resiliency through the economic downturn, LandDesign has been able to grow its business even as other firms with similar specialties reduced their workforce and reported reduced billings. “LandDesign has been aligned well in high-growth real estate markets, both geographically and in sectors where our repeat clients are investing,” says Crocker.

Since the firm named Crocker to the post of president in 2014, LandDesign has added three directors and last year announced its first full-time chief operating officer (COO), Larry LeMaster. LandDesign has also promoted seven of its senior staff members to its ranks of principals. Most recently, Deborah Miller, the firm’s director of strategic growth + business development, has added to her team of business development representatives Karen Pierre and Amanda Cole, bringing new relationships and expanded reach in LandDesign’s Dallas, Orlando, and Washington, D.C. offices. The additions will extend LandDesign’s national brand presence in these high-growth communities with more work in master planning, urban design, landscape architecture, and civil engineering, says Miller.

LandDesign’s award-winning projects include walkable city districts, mixed-use complexes, public open spaces, major housing developments, travel destinations, and corporate and educational campuses. The work ranges in scale from billion-dollar entertainment/retail communities and massive regional greenways to intimate resorts, charming riverwalks and enticing rail trails. In all six of its regional offices, the firm has reported a continuing expansion of its portfolio with major master-planning projects and challenging, exciting commissions to create places that matter.