Rtkl

Despite recent layoffs that have reduced its Baltimore staff from 375 to about 300 and its worldwide staff from 700 to 600, Baltimore's largest architecture firm is still committed to move its headquarters from 400 E. Pratt St. to the Commerce Place office tower under construction at South and Baltimore streets.Harold Adams, chairman of RTKL Associates, said the firm is contractually obligated to move into the 30-story building, where it has leased about 100,000 square feet of space. If RTKL does not need all that space as a result of staff reductions, it could end up subleasing some of it to other tenants, Mr. Adams said.

Baltimore-based RTKL Associates Inc. recently beat two international rivals to win a contract to design an iconic structure for a city along the Yangtze River in China. Last winter, RTKL and two other architectural firms — one British, the other French — were invited by a real estate subsidiary of Chinese steel conglomerate Jiangsu Shagang Group to submit plans for a twin-tower, mixed-use project in Zhangjiagang, a city of about 1.5 million people 60 miles west of Shanghai. RTKL won with a design for two high-rise towers connected by an elliptical atrium.

For anyone who might be wondering where the next hot area in Baltimore will be, there's no better crystal ball than tracking the moves made by Maryland's largest architecture firm, RTKL Associates. Over the past 54 years, RTKL (and its predecessors) have changed headquarters at least once a decade. And every time since the 1970s, at least, it seems to have followed the zeitgeist in uncanny ways, setting up shop in areas that take off shortly after it arrives. In the 1950s, it moved from Annapolis to downtown Baltimore, just as the renewal of Charles Center was getting under way. In the 1970s, it moved to the Village of Cross Keys, a planned community in northern Baltimore that was a precursor to Columbia.

BEIJING -- It's not every day that the president of the United States unveils your design plans, but that's what happened in Shanghai last night to Harold L. Adams, chairman of Baltimore-based RTKL Associates Inc., one of the world's largest design companies.At a small reception at the Shanghai Art Museum, President Clinton and Shanghai Mayor Xu Kuangdi pulled away a red velvet cover to reveal a photo rendering of RTKL's design for a $200 million Shanghai science center."It went extremely well," Adams said in a telephone interview, adding that the president said he was pleased that the contract had gone to an American company and correctly pronounced the company's name.

Freshly sprung from college in 1979, I was giddy with excitement after landing my first "real" job. Hired as a publishing house secretary, I could barely comprehend all the perks coming my way. Paid vacation! A business card with my name on it! My elation fell flat, however, when I saw the hand-me-down office chair parked in front of my desk: a lumpish gray cube, upholstered with what seemed a hybrid of burlap and sandpaper. Dubious stains splattered the seat, which was so low-slung that while typing I looked like a chimpanzee swatting at bananas above my head.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke yesterday named M. J. "Jay" Brodie as the next president of the Baltimore Development Corp., a selection the mayor described as a "major move forward" for the much-maligned economic development agenCity Hall ceremony.Mr. Brodie, a senior vice president of RTKL Associates Inc. and head of its 70-person Washington office, will take over the BDC on Jan. 2 at an annual salary of $125,000. Mr. Schmoke made the appointment based on a recommendation by the BDC's newly created 11-member board.

Montgomery County's latest attempt to revive downtown Silver Spring is smaller, cheaper, less glamorous -- and as a result, everyone appears much happier.County Executive Douglas M. Duncan announced yesterday that four companies -- including RTKL Associates Inc. of Baltimore -- will develop a blueprint for a town center. The choice comes six months after Duncan killed the $585 million American Dream megamall amid stiff neighborhood opposition and questions about the project's financing."The longer we wait, the more expensive it's going to be," Duncan said.

RTKL Associates Inc., Baltimore's largest architectural firm, said yesterday that it acquired a Miami design company that will help the company expand into Latin America and the Caribbean. The firm - Howard Snoweiss Design Group - has about 55 employees and focuses on designing hotels, resorts, corporate interiors, cruise ships, and entertainment and retail complexes. "We see Miami really as the capital of South America, and we will be moving our work in South America to the Miami office," said David C. Hudson, president of RTKL.

After more than a decade of false starts, downtown Silver Spring may finally get the boost it needs to restore it as a vital commercial center.A team of four developers, including Baltimore's RTKL Associates, unveiled a $326 million proposal yesterday that would turn vacant lots, empty buildings and half-filled parking garages in Maryland's second largest community into a "town center" of stores, offices and a hotel.The plan centers on two hubs within the 26-acre wedge of land bordered by Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road: "Silver Circle," a cluster of businesses geared toward leisure activities and evening entertainment; and "Town Square," which would include a supermarket, hardware store and civic meeting building.

Baltimore's largest architectural firm is designing a seven-story waterfront headquarters in Fells Point that would anchor a six-building, $90 million complex of shops, apartments and offices. RTKL Associates Inc., a 54-year-old firm based in the Alex. Brown building at One South Street downtown, may move its 225 local employees to a 250,000-square-foot office building being planned at the southeast corner of Thames and Bond streets, said Gordon Godat, a vice president of the firm. The firm unveiled a preliminary model of the building, which might feature a curved roof, shops along the street and adjacent waterfront plaza for the public, to city officials yesterday during a discussion of a 6-acre mixed-use development that would extend the Fells Point restaurant and shopping district.