- March 28, 2024
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Mike Bryant isn't as bold as to say his Bradenton-based architecture firm is going on a hiring binge, not with the supposed collapse of the entire planning and design industry hanging over his head.
Nonetheless, Bryant, a principle and co-founder of Fawley Bryant, is hopeful that over the next month his 15-year-old firm will land a few large projects. While Bryant declined to elaborate on the specific projects, he did tell Coffee Talk the work would all be in the Sarasota-Bradenton area.
“It's tough out there,” Bryant tells Coffee Talk. “But there are still opportunities to expand our business.”
While it waits to hear about those projects, the 14-employee firm is doing something rare: It's looking at some hiring opportunities. To be sure, one big reason Fawley Bryant is interviewing job candidates is the fact that Sarasota-based ADP, a onetime competitor, shut its doors Aug. 31.
Fawley Bryant has already hired one former ADP employee and interviewed a few others. Bryant says the company doesn't want to commit to any more new hires until it hears about its pending projects.
Meanwhile, one of ADP's founders has also moved on to other projects. Bruce Franklin, who was president of the company, is now focusing his time on Land Resource Strategies. That firm, formerly an ADP subsidiary, will do many of the same tasks ADP did, from land planning to regulatory reviews to zoning work, only on a smaller scale.