WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff acquires Halvorson and Partners

New York — WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff acquired Halvorson and Partners, a 40-person Chicago-based firm that provides structural engineering services for developers, private owners, and institutions worldwide.

Formed in 1996, Halvorson and Partners has completed structural designs for high-profile, award-winning projects throughout the U.S. and internationally. Its portfolio includes the Burj Mohammed Bin Rashid Tower in Abu Dhabi, which won the 2015 Best Tall Building Award for the Middle East and Africa from the CTBUH. Other prominent recent projects include: OneEleven, a 60-story luxury apartment tower in Chicago which recently won a Best Project award from SEAOI; Wolf Point West Tower, the first tower in a multi-phase $1 billion development along the Chicago River in Chicago; and Vantone Tower, a 600-foot-tall corporate headquarters in Tianjin, China.

"Halvorson and Partners is a world class structural firm that shares our culture of deeply caring about the success of our clients and staff," commented David Cooper, president of WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff’s U.S. buildings practice and the region’s chief commercial officer. "This acquisition not only enhances our building structures practice with additional expertise, it also gives us a platform upon which to build a fully integrated buildings engineering practice in the great city of Chicago, the birthplace of the steel frame skyscraper."

Robert Halvorson, founding principal of Halvorson and Partners, led the firm’s designs for the recently completed Index Building in Dubai and the Central Market Towers in Abu Dhabi. He also developed the structural concepts for a number of super-tall towers which Halvorson and Partners has taken through schematic design and design development, including 1 Dubai, Russia Tower in Moscow, and Hanking Center in Shenzhen. Mr. Halvorson will remain with the firm and has been named an executive vice president at Halvorson and Partners, a WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff company. He will continue to lead the Chicago office and will work with WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff’s leadership to integrate and grow the national structural engineering practice.

“We are excited to be joining forces with WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff, a global organization that shares a core philosophy of partnering with clients to provide the highest level of quality services,” explained Mr. Halvorson. “As a part of one of the world’s leading engineering organizations, we are better able to collaborate with our architect partners and to serve our clients wherever they are pursuing projects. It also enables us to offer more of a one-stop approach for structural engineering and the comprehensive high performance building services that are critical to the success of today’s technologically advanced building projects.”

Aside from structural engineering services for tall and complex buildings, Halvorson and Partners offers technical expertise in such areas as adaptive reuse/tenant modification, forensic engineering, value engineering, building assessment, and peer review. Its clients include owners and developers of commercial office towers, residential buildings, hotels, and mixed-use complexes as well as educational and civic institutions.