Newcomb & Boyd, a 100-year-old engineering firm based in Atlanta, has opened an office in Jacksonville.
It is the company’s fourth office and first in Florida.
It opened at 4651 Salisbury Road in May.
Newcomb & Boyd also has offices in Charleston, South Carolina, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.
Jacksonville’s projected growth was one of the reasons for locating an office here, said Adam Bare, Newcomb & Boyd partner. The company has been working in Jacksonville for more than 30 years.
He said a Jacksonville office will allow the company to better service its clients throughout the state. One of those clients is Mayo Clinic in Florida.
“It’s not just about Jacksonville, it’s also Florida. We’re very interested in the whole state of Florida, especially Orlando and Tampa,” he said.
The company employs 290 and has hired 11 for the Jacksonville office. Most were already area residents. Bare wants to have a total of 14 by the end of the year and be up to 20 by next summer.
The company’s Salisbury Road offices are temporary. Bare wants to find larger accommodations by next summer.
Last year, the company generated $51 million in revenue and Bare expects this year to be better.
“We’ve almost doubled in size in the last seven or eight years. I don’t anticipate us doubling again in the next seven years, but I do anticipate continued substantial growth,” Bare said.
“So it would not surprise me if seven or eight years from now, we have 400 people.”
At any given time Bare estimates the company has as many as 500 jobs going on throughout the Southeast.
Newcomb & Boyd primarily focuses on mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering. A single project may include engineers and other specialists from all four offices
“The offices all work together. So if there’s a need or expertise here that would warrant them working on projects that are in Atlanta or Alabama or North Carolina, then that’ll happen. We do a lot of sharing of work across our offices. Workloads ebb and flow and we try as best we can to balance them.”
Its customers are in health care, workplace, higher education, science, technology, aviation, judicial, the military and correctional projects.
One of its specialties is office design. It is part of the business that has changed the most in recent years. Partner Donny Walker leads that division.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, the theory of office design was to provide a space to hold a certain number of people and added amenities to retain and recruit employees. That has changed with remote working.
“We’re seeing that trend move to not only that amenity space, but it’s competing with the creature comforts at home. You want that option of having an area that feels more like a living room,” he said.
Because workers from Newcomb & Boyd offices may be collaborating on a project, Zoom and Teams video meetings have become the norm. Today’s conference rooms need to have the technology and equipment to enhance the video call experience, Walker said.
“You’ve got to have a big screen with lots of real estate to be able to show that content. You need a good camera to be able to pick up everybody in the room,” he said.
“The other thing that we saw grow a lot was the acoustical consulting, because as you’re becoming more collaborative, you want a space that’s conducive to hearing the AV and having good, comfortable conversation,” he said.