Rtkl

David C. Hudson yesterday was named only the second president in the more than 50-year history of Baltimore architectural giant RTKL Associates Inc., and one of a handful of contenders to lead the firm into the 21st century."

BALTIMORE'S largest architectural firm, RTKL Associates, has designed dozens of hotels around the world -- including one for Seoul, South Korea, that will rise 100 stories and contain 2,000 rooms.But the selection of RTKL to design a 44-story hotel overlooking the Inner Harbor has special significance for the firm, principals say, because it would give RTKL a chance to apply its expertise in hotel design and urban design to a project in its hometown.It also would be the first downtown hotel in Baltimore for RTKL since the 500-room Hyatt, which opened in 1981.

RTKL Associates Inc. Chairman Harold L. Adams yesterday was named the first recipient of the World Trade Center Institute's Governor's Award, for his work promoting Maryland businesses internationally.The 56-year-old head of the city's largest architectural firm received the award from Gov. Parris N. Glendening at a luncheon at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.Mr. Adams, who is chairman of the World Trade Center Institute, has been primarily responsible for expanding RTKL's scope beyond Baltimore and the United States.

Affirmative action challengeNationsBank Corp. has filed a lawsuit challenging how the federal government is monitoring the company's record on affirmative action.The suit seeks to stop the U.S. Labor Department from using bank-employment records in two cities to review the Charlotte, N.C.-based banking company's record on hiring and promoting women and minorities.NationsBank says in the suit, filed last week, that the department's "unwarranted and unreasonable designation" of its Tampa, Fla., and Columbia, S.C., operations for review could cause the bank "to suffer actual injury," because the department can bar the company from federal contracts.

Leonard S. Kagan, a retired architect and partner of RTK&L Associates Inc., died yesterday of diabetes complications at his Pikesville residence. He was 52.He began his career with the New York City Planning Commission in 1962 and worked for several other New York architectural firms before joining RTK&L in 1969. He retired in 1991.Mr. Kagan designed large commercial retail office buildings and shopping malls in a distinctive modern neo-classical Jeffersonian style. Some of his local projects included White Marsh Mall, Hunt Valley Mall and Commerce Place.

HEFEI, China -- Whether it's growing too fast or just fast enough, China's booming economy is creating huge opportunities for Maryland businesses. The problem is how to take advantage of them.Last week's tour of three Chinese cities organized by the state of Maryland shows some of the problems and successes facing small- and medium-sized companies that try to invest in the world's fastest-growing economy.The tour also illustrated the value of government-sponsored trade delegations, which carry the clout that opens doors in China.

RTKL Associates Inc., the region's largest architectural firm, has been selected as part of a team to design a new $600 million headquarters for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Montgomery County.RTKL will design the 2.6 million-square-foot complex in conjunction with the Philadelphia-based Kling-Lindquist Partnership Inc. and other consultants.In selecting the team, the U.S. General Services Administration noted RTKL's experience with government jobs and Kling-Lindquist's knowledge of laboratory facilities.

Harold Adams thinks about Steve Ziger and sees someone who, under other circumstances, could build the seven-person shop of Ziger, Hoopes and Snead into an architecture firm rivaling the biggest and best."

It started with just sand and water. It ended with wacky and creative sand structures.The fifth annual CitySand sand-sculpturing competition at Harborplace's Amphitheatre yesterday attracted hundreds of people who cheered the creativity of some of Baltimore's finest architects.The theme, "Baltimore: An All-Star City," was not surprising given that the city will host Major League Baseball's all-stars on July 13. For four hours, from noon to 4 p.m., architects from various city firms equipped themselves with spatulas and buckets to slap 100-cubic-foot sand patties into form.

Architecture firm RTKL to expandOne more sign of a thaw in the icy world of commercial development: RTKL Associates Inc., the state's largest architecture firm, plans to expand its downtown headquarters."

Home prices may be stabilizing, index says Home prices now appear to be falling at a less severe pace across the nation, according to a widely followed index released Tuesday, but values are still lower than last year. Prices of homes sold in May were down 17 percent from the same month a year ago, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas. The index is now at 2003 levels and is 32 percent below its 2006 peak. But May marked the fourth consecutive month in which the index's decline from the previous year was smaller than that of the preceding month.

RTKL Associates Inc., the homegrown architecture firm that has put its stamp on much of the region as well as worldwide projects including the Beijing Olympics, has been sold to a Dutch engineering and consulting company. ARCADIS, which specializes in environmental remediation, infrastructure and property development, announced yesterday that it had bought the privately held Baltimore firm for an undisclosed sum. RTKL Chairman Paul Jacob III said the firm had been thinking about pursuing a merger for some time as a means to grow more rapidly globally.

In acquiring RTKL Associates, ARCADIS has purchased not only the largest architectural firm in Maryland but also the one that has changed the local urban landscape more than any other in the past 100 years. Its contributions range from office towers such as One South Street and Charles Center South to shopping centers in Owings Mills, White Marsh and Towson, and from the Greater Baltimore Medical Center to the Hyatt Regency Baltimore hotel and the soon-to-open downtown Hilton. Many of its former employees have started design firms or otherwise assumed influential roles, including Baltimore Development Corp.

A12-story building that combines elements of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Habitat '67 residences in Montreal and the Hampton Plaza commercial center in Towson got the nod yesterday as the favored design for the next major addition to the Maryland Institute College of Art. Two designers from the London office of RTKL Associates, Christy Wright and Grant Armstrong, won an international design competition that RTKL and MICA launched in August to...

For years, Baltimore-based architecture and design firm RTKL Associates earned about 15 percent of its profits from overseas projects tax-free, thanks to a federal export subsidy designed to help U.S. firms compete abroad. Then the World Trade Organization declared the subsidy illegal, leaving RTKL and thousands of other U.S. firms wondering what would happen to their profits from overseas business. They got their answer this week when Congress declared RTKL - a firm that makes most of its money turning out drawings and plans - a U.S. manufacturer deserving of a tax break.

After the kudos they've gotten for their newest building on campus, the glass-clad Brown Center, leaders of the Maryland Institute College of Art have set out to make sure their next building is equally well-received. And they're doing so in characteristically MICA fashion -- by taking an unconventional approach. The college this summer launched a competition to come up with a conceptual design for a $20 million, 200-student residence hall on the northern edge of Baltimore's Mount Royal cultural district.

David C. Hudson can't swim, vault or sprint like an Olympian, but he has already made his mark on the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. His specialty? Urban visions. Hudson, 56, runs RTKL Associates Inc., a Baltimore-based international architecture and design firm that won the equivalent of a gold medal in 2001 when Chinese officials selected it to draw up a master plan for the Beijing International Sports and Exhibition Center, a virtual city within a city intended to house the 2008 Games.

Three days after terrorists flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the west face of the Pentagon, the phone rang in RTKL Associates' 10th-floor offices on South Street in downtown Baltimore. The nation's military headquarters was still burning. Bodies were still being recovered. The architects at RTKL, like millions of Americans, were glued to coverage on television and the Internet as firefighters and rescue workers continued their struggle. "They wanted to know if we would help rebuild it," said Ronald E. Fidler, a vice president at the Baltimore-based design firm.

Archibald Coleman Rogers, an architect who founded RTKL Associates Inc. and played a key role in the development of Baltimore's Charles Center and Inner Harbor, died yesterday of complications from a stroke at Keswick Multi-Care Center. He was 84 and lived in Bolton Hill. His vision and his firm helped transform the city's aging business district and once-moribund Inner Harbor. He also attained architecture's top professional honor, the presidency of the American Institute of Architects, in 1973.

Architects from the Baltimore design company RTKL Associates Inc. will be among the first workers to enter damaged sections of the Pentagon to begin redesigning and rebuilding the nation's military headquarters. The Department of Defense has awarded RTKL a $1.6 million contract to assess the damage caused by last week's terrorist attack and begin sketching plans to rebuild. The contract is an initial payment for work expected to cost $20.8 million, the department announced yesterday. RTKL, which has its headquarters on South Street in Baltimore, will help restore the Pentagon as part of a team of companies.