DeWITT - Ready or not, Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt plans to move May 30 into a 14,640-square-foot office located at 5710 Commons Park Drive in DeWitt. The structural-engineering and landscape-architecture firm's three principals recently acquired the building for $1.2 million through the LLC they own called KHH Properties LLC.
Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt will lease space from KHH Properties. The building is assessed at $1.03 million in 2008, according to the Onondaga County Office of Real Property Tax Services Web site.
Renovations may not be completed by the move-in date, but the firm's almost 40 employees are ready to vacate cramped quarters at 5795 Widewaters Parkway in DeWitt. The move one half-mile down the road will provide almost every employee with his or her own office with a window.
The firm has grown from 25 to 34 in two years, providing the need for additional space, says Richard L. Applebaum, principal and president.
Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt's principals are financing the building purchase through Beacon Federal. They declined to disclose renovation costs or financing details.
The 58-year-old firm leased 5,000 square feet of space, at Widewaters Parkway for 11 years from Massachusetts-based Flub Properties Trust - an affiliate of HRPT Properties Trust (NYSE: HRP).
Gordon P. Hyatt, principal and vice president of Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt, says that the firm looked for a larger office for two years and recently acquired the Commons Park Drive building due to the expiration of its Widewaters Parkway lease.
"This [Commons Park Drive building] was in our price range and our square footage," Hyatt says.
Applebaum, Hyatt, and James A. D'Aloisio, principal and secretary-treasurer, are equal partners in Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt. The three principals purchased the building from former owner Edward B. Tibbits, based in Cazenovia.
They hired general contractor The Hayner Hoyt Corp., based in Syracuse, to conduct building renovations.
Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt clients are primarily architects in Central New York. It generates about $3 million in revenue annually. Applebaum says 34 full-time employees work at the firm and that two more structural engineers will join the staff in July. Three interns will also work for the firm this summer.
Until 1989, Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt solely conducted structural-engineering projects.
The principals say they added additional services, starting in 1989, to grow the firm and overcome its trouble recruiting structural engineers - an industrywide problem.
"Engineers are very, very hard to come by. There's been a huge shortage of structural engineers and engineers in general," Applebaum says.
The principals found other ways to expand their firm by expanding services to also include landscape architecture, historic-project preservation, building envelopes or exterior-building design, sustainable design, and special inspections for construction-inspection services.
Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt recently restored the facade of Crouse College at Syracuse University. The principals say they are currently conducting facade and roof repairs on the old Onondaga County Courthouse. Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt is also providing structural-engineering services to the Golisano Children's Hospital construction project at University Hospital and the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center project at Syracuse University, which has just begun.
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