Five straight years of revenue declines for the Southwest's top design firms have taken a toll. Design revenue from projects located in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico for the top 70 survey respondents fell another 19% to $817.7 million in 2011, compared with the previous year. But many firms began laying the groundwork to jump out of the gate once design work picks up—and in some market sectors, it already has.
The year "2011 was another ... where our revenues were lower than the year before," says Steven Perich with Albuquerque, N.M., firm Dekker/Perich/Sabatini. "We reluctantly did another round of staff reductions in the middle of the year." However, the market began improving for the firm in the fourth quarter and into first quarter of 2012, Perich says, which "allowed us to bring back some of the people we had previously let go and also to add some strategic new hires."