THE GEOGRAPHY OF EXPERIENCE | Expanding Our Market Reach
For more than four decades, MV+A has built its practice around a simple premise: successful places begin with understanding how people live, shop, gather, and connect. While our work has traditionally been concentrated throughout the Mid-Atlantic, the experience gained across thousands of acres of retail, mixed-use, multifamily, and master planning projects is increasingly finding expression in communities well beyond our home region.
Today, our work spans more than twenty states. That expansion is not the result of a deliberate pursuit of geography for geography’s sake. Rather, it reflects something more fundamental. As clients expand their own portfolios and communities grapple with increasingly complex development challenges, specialized expertise has become remarkably portable. Proven experience, thoughtful collaboration, and long-term relationships have proven to be every bit as valuable as proximity.
With completed and ongoing work in more than twenty states, MV+A continues to expand its geographic reach while remaining rooted in the principles that have defined the practice for over forty years.
WHY EXPERTISE TRAVELS
Architectural practices are often measured by the places they work. Yet geography rarely explains why opportunities emerge. More often than not, the catalyst is specialization.
Today’s development projects are increasingly complex. Clients are not simply looking for a design team—they are looking for partners who have successfully navigated similar challenges before. In many respects, the modern architectural profession has become increasingly specialized.
As projects grow more technically demanding and financially complex, clients are placing greater value on firms with deep experience in specific project types rather than firms located closest to the site. Expertise has become a competitive advantage that transcends geography.
Communities certainly differ. Markets differ. Regulations differ. Yet many of the questions developers ask remain remarkably similar. How should retail be organized? What mix of uses creates long-term value? How should projects be phased? How can infrastructure be preserved while redevelopment moves forward? Those questions—and the experience required to answer them—travel remarkably well.
Avon Village Master Plan | Avon, CO | Kensington Development Partners
At Avon Village, MV+A was brought in to help develop a plan that would not only attract WFM but still support the goals and vision for the overall broader master planned community. MV+A worked to manipulate grade on the site to allow physical and visual connections throughout the plan, while also creating an ideal parking scenario for WFM in a cost effective solution. They quickly were able to obtain a lease for WFM with thoughtful planning and striking architecture that set in motion additional development and sets a high bar for design quality for the project. MV+A is currently the Design Architect and the Architect of Record for the Avon Village Whole Foods Market store.
TRANSLATING LOCAL EXPERIENCE INTO NATIONAL EXPERIENCE
Working in a new community never means arriving with preconceived answers. Every municipality possesses its own development process, regulatory framework, market dynamics, and cultural identity.
Understanding those local conditions remains essential to successful design. Rather than replacing local expertise, specialized architectural practice depends upon collaboration with local professionals, engineers, consultants, contractors, and public officials who understand their communities in ways no outside firm ever could.
The value of experience lies elsewhere. It lies in recognizing patterns that repeat regardless of location. It lies in understanding how retail adjacencies influence leasing, how phased redevelopment minimizes disruption to existing tenants, how structured parking affects project economics, or how placemaking decisions made during master planning influence long-term community success. Those lessons have been refined over decades and become part of an institutional knowledge that can be adapted to virtually any market.
Successful projects emerge from the combination of these two perspectives: local knowledge and specialized experience. Neither replaces the other. Together they create better outcomes than either could achieve independently.
Liberty East | Pittsburgh, PA | LG Realty Advisors
When working in any market beyond our regional locale, MV+A engages in deep due diligence to identify the best mix of local consultant to ensure the project’s success. For the Liberty East project, we turned to Dave Parker, a local architect to assist in our Construction Administration phase efforts. Additionally, all of our key consultant team members were local to Pittsburgh, including: Gateway Engineering (Civil / Structural), Allen & Shariff Engineers (MEP), and Pashek & MTR (Landscape Architecture).
MV+A was the Design Architect and the Architect of Record for the first phase building and is currently working with LG Realty Advisors on the planning and development of the remaining blocks in the approved masterplan..
RELATIONSHIPS THAT TRAVEL
Perhaps more than any other profession, architecture is built upon relationships. Buildings may last generations, but projects begin with trust—trust developed through years of collaboration, successful problem solving, and shared commitment to a client’s long-term vision. Those relationships rarely end when construction is complete. Instead, they often evolve alongside the clients themselves.
Developers expand into neighboring states. Retailers pursue new markets. Investment partners form new ventures. Public agencies establish new priorities. As those opportunities emerge, clients frequently seek the same design partners who helped guide earlier successes.
For MV+A, many commissions beyond the Mid-Atlantic have grown from exactly this pattern. Rather than chasing unfamiliar markets, our work has often followed longstanding client relationships into new communities. Geography, in many respects, becomes secondary. The real continuity is trust.
That continuity also creates better projects. Familiarity with a client’s organizational culture, operational priorities, and long-term objectives allows design teams to begin each new commission with a deeper understanding than would otherwise be possible. Every successful project strengthens the foundation for the next.
A selection of our longstanding clients with whom we are working nationally.
THE COMPOUNDING EFFECT OF EXPERTISE
One of the most interesting aspects of architectural practice is that experience rarely accumulates in isolation. It compounds.
Our earliest commissions focused primarily on neighborhood retail. As those relationships matured, projects became increasingly sophisticated. Grocery-anchored centers evolved into mixed-use communities. Retail planning expanded into multifamily housing. Individual buildings grew into comprehensive master plans. Each new project introduced another layer of knowledge while reinforcing lessons already learned.
Over time, that accumulated experience becomes more than technical proficiency. It becomes professional judgment.
It informs decisions about phasing, entitlement strategies, operational logistics, tenant coordination, service access, construction sequencing, and the countless variables that determine whether a project succeeds over decades rather than simply on opening day.
This cumulative knowledge is ultimately what clients seek when projects become increasingly ambitious. While every community presents unique circumstances, the underlying principles remain remarkably consistent. Experience earned on one project strengthens every project that follows.
From our early neighborhood retail projects to our recent, large scale master planning projects, our work has always been predicated on a simple premise: successful places begin with understanding how people live, shop, gather, and connect. Our work with EDENS is a great example of how we’ve leveraged this premise to grow alongside a great client.
Clockwise from top left: Arlington Ridge | Arlington, VA; Cabin John Village | Potomac, MD; Atherton Mill | Charlotte, NC; Lulah Hills | Decatur, GA
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Maps tell us where we’ve been. They reveal little about how we arrived there. The expansion of MV+A’s geographic reach is ultimately not a story about states, markets, or office locations. It is a story about the steady accumulation of experience, the enduring strength of client relationships, and the belief that thoughtful planning and placemaking principles can be adapted to communities of every size and character.
As our clients continue to grow, we are grateful for the opportunity to grow alongside them. The geography may continue to change, but our mission remains remarkably consistent: applying decades of specialized experience to create places that perform, endure, and enrich the communities they serve.
