Architecture firm launches with $160M in projects

By   –  Staff Writer, Dallas Business Journal


An architecture firm focused on senior living and health care facilities has spun off of Perkins+Will.

The new 12-architect firm, called PRDG, has 18 projects in the works totaling about $160 million in construction costs, co-founding principals Paul Donaldson and Ryan Robinson told me in a recent interview. One of them is the $55 million T. Boone Pickens Hospice and Palliative Care Center.

The firm's specialty is designing senior living campuses, medical facilities, hospices and hospitality sites, the principals told me. Both have worked on engagements in the United States, Central America and China.

PRDG (Paul Ryan Design Group) LLC, at 3535 Travis St. in Uptown Dallas, is an outgrowth of the Dallas office of Chicago-based global architecture and design firm Perkins+Will.

Donaldson, a former principal in charge of the Senior Living Practice, said Perkins+Will gave PRDG its blessing to create an independent firm.

"We wanted to really focus on senior housing and design and really focus on the people and be very client oriented," Donaldson said. "We thought that at a smaller work environment, we could really achieve that better."

Robinson, a former associate and senior project architect in Senior Living and Healthcare Practices, said the senior market "caught fire" last spring, allowing PRDG to launch with a workload of five Perkins+Will-originated projects. Since launching in June, the firm has gained more than a dozen additional design assignments for senior residences, memory care, skilled nursing units and other projects,” Robinson said.

Probably the most high profile is the T. Boone Pickens Hospice and Palliative Care Center, which will be the first stand-alone hospice inpatient care center in Dallas. The facility, scheduled for groundbreaking this fall and opening in 2015, will be on Merit Drive near Medical City in Dallas.

The aging population and a desire for higher quality senior housing is driving demand in the sector, Donaldson said.

"It's a really exciting time for senior housing," he said. "It's probably the hottest this market has been since 2005. The occupancies are full, the market is extremely busy, and we're doing the largest variety of projects that we've ever seen. The timing for us has turned out to be great."

Donaldson, a Dallas native, earned a bachelor of architecture degree from Texas Tech University in 1991, and Robinson, of Houston, received a bachelor of architectural design from Texas Tech University in 2000.

Here's a list of PRDG's projects under way, project partners and type of facility:

NORTH TEXAS — 7 projects

• Forney — HealthCap Partners, assisted living
• Plano — Main Street, Greenbrier Development, assisted living
• Alliance — HealthCap Partners, Beacon Hill, assisted living, memory care
• Dallas — U.S. Memory Care, memory support
• Fort Worth — HealthCap Partners, The Vantage at City View, assisted living
• Dallas — CPA Lakewood, Vickery Towers, planning
• Dallas — Presbyterian Communities and Services, T. Boone Pickens Hospice and Palliative Care Center

ELSEWHERE IN TEXAS — 7 projects

• Victoria — Twin Pines Skilled Nursing, Jamail-Smith Construction
• League City — Methodist Retirement Communities, continuing care retirement community
• Houston — U.S. Memory Care, USMC Vintage, memory support
• Cypress — HealthCap Partners, Cypresswood Assisted Living
• Georgetown — Titan Development, concept planning
• Waco — Greenbrier Development, Main Street Waco, senior community
• Kingwood — Westminster Kingwood, renovation

NATIONWIDE — 4 projects

• Corrales, N.M. -- Titan Development, concept development
• Mandeville, La. — LifeCare Services, St. Anthony's Garden, continuing care retirement community
• Marlboro, N.J. — Marlboro Assisted Living, formation development
• Naperville, Ill. — Naperville Concept Planning