Kirksey Architecture Celebrates Austin Anniversary with Expansion

Kirksey Architecture’s Austin office celebrates its five-year anniversary this month with a new expansion at its homebase in Springdale General. The Texas-grown firm has served Central Texas for 25 years and grown fivefold since opening their Austin office in 2018. 

Five years into the firm’s tenure as an Austin local, Kirksey has seen exponential growth in staff and projects across the region. They’ve added new graduates and experienced industry veterans to their team as they grow their local knowledge-based expertise. David Dalton, one of Kirksey’s Director-Central Texas and original transplants from the Houston office has watched the firm’s Austin presence grow organically. “While Kirksey had been in the region for two decades, our work for Texas Facilities Commission and UT Austin is what provided the spark to put down roots and open an office,” he notes. “ But in the last five years, the work we’ve done has grown across nearly every market sector, and we can now collectively leverage the expertise and best practices from all three of our Texas offices.”

Kirksey Austin has seen project growth in most market sectors and the firm’s portfolio now includes projects that shape communities in and around Austin and the Central Texas Region. In addition to signature projects at the Capitol Complex, the Austin team has completed or are currently working on:

• schools and aquatic facilities for Austin ISD, San Antonio ISD, and Round Rock ISD,
• a highly sustainable corporate headquarters for Credit Human in San Antonio,
• developer-driven projects like the new Hines office project at the Domain, intended for IBM, 
• corporate interior projects for Fortune 500 companies and law firms such as Haynes and Boone, 
• religious and community-based projects for organizations like Austin Bible Ridge Church and Foundation Communities, 
• public work for City of Austin, including the Pharr Tennis Center, a facility designed to achieve LEED Silver and SITES certification, and a public health and emergency operations facility for Comal County,
• and higher education projects including the new Graduate Student Housing development, University Co-Op design, and the Microelectronic Research Center cleanroom expansion  for The University of Texas, and a renovation of Ruth Collins Hall at Baylor University.

The Austin office has successfully harnessed the deep well of expertise and experience from the firm’s first 50 years in Houston and organically expanded in all directions. The firm’s roots and connections with developers in Houston provided a solid foundation for the Austin office’s work with local developers, and Kirksey’s universal experience in pK-12, Community and Religious, Higher Education, Commercial Office Buildings, Healthcare, and Science and Technology offered a launch pad for projects in Central Texas. With five years of a dedicated Austin team in their pocket, the firm now has staff members with specific and relevant expertise and experience with the Austin land development code. This kind of day-to-day experience streamlines project delivery and expedites the process ensuring successful projects that are uniquely Austin. 

Now, the Austin team is growing and winning work well beyond Austin’s city limits. “With Kirksey’s growth, we’ve been able to really pool the resources of our three offices in Texas and take all of the best practices and the design process with us in each location,” remarked Dalton. “And with sustainability at the core of Kirksey’s DNA, it’s made it an easy fit in a city like Austin where the culture really perpetuates sustainable design. That’s our thing, design that always yields value.”
 

Kirksey's new office expansion provides 12 more workstations and
additional collaboration space.