The Keimig Associates

Owner: Alan Keimig

Specialty: Architectural services

Year founded: 1975

2002 revenues: $640,000

Projected 2003 revenues: $400,000s

Largest current projects: The Truitt Building, Auburn renovation projects

Architect Alan Keimig says demand for office and medical space is keeping things busy at The Keimig Associates, but he could do without another activity he says has overtaken his Auburn firm.

Keimig says state and local regulations require so many drawings and other design documents that he and his five employees spend at least one third of their time doing redundant paperwork.

“It’s stupid,” he said. “It’s just a way for them to justify that we’re doing the job right.”

Keimig says his firm typically designs about 50 projects a year, and while 2003 is running a little behind that pace, he says his recent projects are larger than usual.

His firm is licensed to work in New York, Mexico, Washington and California, but Keimig says most of his projects are between North Seattle and Gig Harbor, and his portfolio is biggest in South King County.

Keimig says long-time business owner Bruce Alverson hired his firm to help redevelop a third of a block in downtown Auburn from cleared land into transit-oriented mixed-use retail, office and multi-family space.

Keimig says his firm did a lot of design work on retirement centers and Alzheimer’s disease wings in recent years, but he’s now seeing more demand for general medical space. Keimig says demand for car dealerships has also dropped off.

But Keimig says paperwork continues to pick up. He says a job that would once have required his firm to submit drawings of an alarm system now requires backup drawings of electrical panels and other items.

“Twenty years ago I did a retirement center with 17 sheets of drawings,” Keimig said. “The last one had 156 sheets and it was basically the same facility.”



Copyright ©2003 Seattle Daily Journal and DJC.COM.
Comments? Questions? Contact us.