National Design Firm Cooper Carry Acquires Boulder-Based Firm
BISWIRE/Sept. 19, 2023 — National design firm Cooper Carry is pleased to announce the acquisition of 505Design, an architecture firm with offices in Boulder, Colorado, and Charlotte, North Carolina. The acquisition will expand Cooper Carry’s capabilities and design reach across the country. The expansion comes as part of CEO Kyle Reis’ five-year strategic plan focused on three main areas: creative capital, agility, and growth.
“We are thrilled to join forces with the great designers and thinkers at 505Design,” said Reis. “We know they share our deep commitment to customer service and to infusing the design of places with the kind of connectivity, story and emotion that leads to long-term return on investment for our clients. We look forward to adding more capabilities to serve clients in the Carolinas, Colorado and beyond, and to bringing the clients of 505Design our deep expertise in everything from Science + Technology and Higher Education to Hospitality, Multifamily and Mixed-Use Design. The pandemic has taught us that the most successful places are those designed with intentionality and a holistic approach, led by a unified team that has the wide variety of expertise to get it right the first time. This acquisition solidifies and enhances our ability to do that.”
505Design is known for creating richly layered and engaging places for people. The firm, founded in 2005, has a primarily mixed-use, retail, residential and environmental graphic design portfolio that includes such projects as the recent Kingsley mixed-use development in Fort Mill, South Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte. Kingsley won the 2019 AIA Charlotte Design & Service Award in Urban Design and the 2020 ICSC North America Gold for New Mixed-Use Development. 505Design, with 41 employees and offices in Charlotte, NC, and Boulder, CO, has projects in states from Florida to Hawaii.
With this acquisition, Cooper Carry will now have 5 offices (Atlanta, DC, NYC, Charlotte and Boulder/Denver) and approximately 360 employees.
“We believe every dollar spent should be in service to your brand and what your project is trying to accomplish,” said John Ward, partner at 505Design. “We are designers and cultural anthropologists, and our sweet spot is project visioning, placemaking and storytelling. We’re joining forces with a design firm with 152 licensed architects and many other talented team members who are visionaries themselves and know how to bring complex projects to life in ways that work for the client and end users. We’re very excited about this union.”
Founded in 1960, Cooper Carry is the largest design firm in Atlanta, with highly successful offices in Washington, D.C. and New York City. The firm employs 320 people across numerous studios and services and works on projects all over the world, from Dubai to Nicaragua to Texas to Maine. Most recently, Cooper Carry received its first Just.® label for recognition as a socially just and equitable organization. The firm’s studios include Hospitality, The Johnson Studio, K-12, Higher Education, Science + Technology, Office Workplace, Multifamily Residential, Mixed-Use, Government, Retail and Transit. Cooper Carry’s services include architecture, interior design, urban planning and design, landscape architecture, branding and experiential graphic design, sustainability consulting, programming, campus planning and historic preservation and adaptive reuse.
Ward, Nick Igel, and Carl Okazaki, Partners of 505Design, will lead Cooper Carry’s new Boulder/Denver office alongside Colorado-based Cooper Carry Principal Krista Dumkrieger. Jim Babinchak, Partner of 505Design, will be Cooper Carry’s new Charlotte office leader. 505Design partners John Ward, Nick Igel, Jim Babinchak and Carl Okazaki will all become Principals of Cooper Carry. 505’s Kevin Kern, who leads Branding and Environmental Graphics, and Kevin Roberts, who leads Architecture, will become Associate Principals at Cooper Carry, as will Lynn Williams, who heads Interior Design for 505, and Mac Bernhardt, who heads their Multi-Discipline studio.
They join 32 Cooper Carry Principals and 47 Associate Principals in the leadership of the new 360-person firm.
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