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Revenue growth FY 2020 to 2022: 162%
2022 revenue: $18.28 million
That was then: In last year’s interview for the Fast 25, principal Dan Moriarity talked about how Studio M added 12-14 people during the pandemic to keep up with the demand that resulted from low interest rates and real estate prices. Much has changed in a year, but not Studio M’s approach to balancing good design with smart budgeting. Moriarity said it’s repeat clients who appreciate that approach and have his firm back among the fastest-growing companies.
His instruction: “I tell our people: ‘We don’t want to be architects; we want to be trusted advisors,’” Moriarity said. “We want people to trust us to help them make decisions about their businesses, about their buildings. Architecture is a means to an end. It’s an offshoot of what we should be doing, which is advising people where they want to go as people and as an organization.”
Current example: Moriarity continued: “We had a project [in late March] where everybody likes the design but the construction costs came back higher than the owner dictated would work. But we can’t wish it was less. We said, ‘We’ve got some hard choices to make. What can we do to move the deal to where it needs to move and still have a building we’re all proud of?’ That’s what’s allowed us to have steady clients.”
Big project: Studio M is the architect for Andretti Motorsports’ new 575,000-square-foot global racing and technology headquarters under construction in Fishers. Moriarity said his firm also has projects going in Bargersville, Carmel, Westfield, Noblesville and Fort Wayne—many of them involving higher-density urban living.
In Indianapolis: Moriarity favors the idea of “reverse urban sprawl,” and an example of that can be seen in Block 20, located downtown near the Athenaeum. The Studio M-designed building features 120 units plus restaurants “in a place that already has the infrastructure—police, fire, roads—instead of just sprawling out further.”•
Check out more of IBJ’s ranking of Indy’s fastest-growing companies.
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