Editor’s Note: MVE + Partners, which has designed several of Southern California’s most famous buildings and apartment complexes, on Feb. 26 celebrated its 50th anniversary.
It was a cold, rainy Saturday morning in February 1974 when I entered my office in the Brookhollow Office Park in Santa Ana with my new firm, Carl McLarand & Associates.
On that wet morning, the plural use of “associates” was a dream as I only had one employee, a drafter. The economy was not exactly thriving, and the country was in political upheaval. The prime lending rate had approached 11%, thereby making new construction financing exceptionally difficult.
Previously, I had graduated from USC’s school of architecture’s tough five-year program in four years and had served a six-month tour with the Coast Guard.
I then worked for eight years at one of the largest architectural firms in Los Angeles, AC Martin and Associates, where for some reason a lot of the senior designers saw something in me, the youngest architect on staff.
There, I found opportunities to design significant architectural projects and interact with some of the country’s business leaders, like Lou Lundborg, then chairman of Bank of America.
At just 26 years of age, I designed the 27-story 1900 Avenue of the Stars office building in Century City. I also developed the conceptual design for Atlantic Richfield Plaza, a twin 51-story office development that remains the largest private commercial project in the history of Los Angeles.
The experience at that job gave me a head start on how to deal with massive projects.
The First Project
When I began my company, I shared office space with friend and colleague Don Brinkerhoff, an incredibly talented planner and landscape architect who had recently opened a firm, Lifescapes.
Even though I lived in San Marino at the time, I saw Orange County’s vast potential for development.
From the very beginning, the success of the firm would depend on my ability to provide services that exceeded the expectations of developers, who would then return as repeat clients.
To achieve this objective, it was crucial that the firm provide its clients with the best design that would have to be visually attractive and meet the client’s financial criteria. The goal was to design a project that either sold or leased better than the competition.
Sales in my first year were $5,000, then jumped to $75,000 in the second year and then doubled in the third year. We grew to 140 people. I never went to management school like Harvard, so I had to learn along the way.
Over the subsequent years, Lifescapes and CMA did many projects together but perhaps the first project was the most important. It was a 118-unit development in Orange that featured relatively small townhome units in a heavily landscaped environment.
The project was an immediate success, selling out within 30 days after its opening. The project was later awarded the Gold Nugget for its design at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference. More importantly, it attracted several new clients to both firms.
The two firms’ businesses quickly expanded when in 1979, we moved into a Class-A high-rise office building located adjacent to both the South Coast Plaza and the Orange County cultural center that was in its infancy.
It was a strategic decision as I realized that clients were risking tens of millions of dollars in each of their developments. I believed that they would feel more comfortable working with an architect who understood business issues as opposed to the more typical artsy office most architects at the time presented.
At this location, I brought in two new partners: Ernie Vasquez and Rick Emsiek and the name eventually morphed to MVE + Partners.
The firm, which had initially focused on housing products, expanded to resort planning, office, hospitality, retail, institutional and mixed-use projects. I don’t have a favorite style.
I like to develop architecture that invites you in, makes you want to visit the facility.
We completed numerous significant projects including the 1 million-square-foot Wilshire Courtyard in Los Angeles, the 1.2 million-square-foot Santa Monica Water Garden development, and the 27-story Metropolitan Transportation Center at the historic Union Station in Los Angeles.
In addition, MVE designed Newport Beach’s Belcourt and One Ford Road communities, both of which remain as premier luxury, multiple product housing developments.
In addition, we designed the twin building, 650,000-square-foot Bayview office development, also in Newport Beach. Further, we completed the design of numerous significant apartment developments for notable developers including The Irvine Co., which we have been proud to call a client for 45 years.
In December 1999, the firm again moved its offices to a new location, this time atop an eight-story office building the firm designed for The Koll Co., where its headquarters remain.
For Irvine Co., we designed large-scale high-end apartment developments such as The Village and The Park at the Irvine Spectrum that together total over 3,000 residential units.
We designed numerous Newport Center buildings. When I was 14 years old in 1953, I attended the famous Boy Scouts Jamboree at the site that is now Newport Center and Fashion Island. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would have so much influence in developing this area.
China Expansion
During MVE + Partners’ 50-year history there have been several recessionary cycles. The firm has taken considerable pride in managing through these recessionary periods by proactively finding unique work products or locations which were not affected by recessionary pressures.
In 2009, my son Matthew McLarand and I visited several cities in mainland China where construction was flourishing. We came back to Irvine with a contract to design a 1 million-square-foot office campus in Dalian, China.
We subsequently established significant client relationships in China and eventually designed over 18 million square feet of built products in cities such as Dalian, Wuhan, Beijing and Chengdu.
In 2019, MVE + Partners successfully transitioned its management to a new generation of leaders who were drawn from the existing organization. Matthew McLarand assumed the role of president and chief executive. In addition, over 15 existing members were selected as future leaders of the firm and were offered the right to purchase designated allocations of the company stock.
Over the ensuing five years, the ownership of the firm has been completely transferred to these new shareholders in a manner that rewards and incentivizes them for their efforts and success. In addition, the program ensures the firm’s sustainability for generations to come.
Under Matt’s leadership the firm continues to flourish and, in addition to its other notable projects, has become a recognized leader in the design of beautiful, efficient high-rise and super high-rise structures. Further, the firm has added four offices to locally serve its expanded client base including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver and Guadalajara, Mexico.
During our history, we have designed buildings on six continents and won more than 1,000 architectural awards.
Recalling my humble start, I never imagined how we’d grow to become one of the largest and most influential architectural firms in California.
