Tim Harty, The Business Times

It took about five years to come to fruition, but HDR, a professional services firm in the architecture, engineering and construction industry, finally has an office in Grand Junction.

To help spread the word, HDR hosted an open house Sept. 4 to welcome local agencies and other members of the industry. In addition to showing off the new downtown office at 202 Main St., Suite 200, above Credit Union of Colorado, HDR shared it will be able to do more.

“HDR is expanding its services in western Colorado to meet the growing demand for infrastructure reflective of Western Slope’s overall growth,” said Mike Goolsby, HDR senior project manager and office principal. “We’re excited to provide a local office for team members to better serve our local clients and continue expanding our work not only in the Grand Junction area, but across the Western Slope.”

The office has nine employees at the moment and the ability to accommodate 15, according to HDR Senior Communication Strategist Elise Thatcher.

“Most of us were already working for HDR in Grand Junction,” she said, but they were working from home.

“It was really important to get them a place to land, instead of working out of their house,” Goolsby said. “That was a big thing for us, to be able to have a place.”

He added HDR likes to have that local presence, saying, “Even though we’re a fairly big engineering and architecture firm, our offices are small.”

Goolsby said the search for an office in Grand Junction “has kind of been in the works for about five years,” as HDR likes to be part of the community it works in.

The length of the process also reflected the desire to find the right spot, “a location that we were happy with, and being downtown was a big piece of that,” he said.

HDR is headquartered in Omaha, Neb., but it has nearly 750 employees across Colorado and offices in Denver, Colorado Springs and Durango. Its first office opened nearly 70 years ago in Colorado Springs.

The expansion of services comes with additional hires on the Western Slope focused on transportation, strategic communications, waste management, right-of-way acquisition, water and more.

Thatcher said HDR brings deep local knowledge of the Western Slope to projects it does in this part of the state. Its recent work in the region includes:

• 32 1/2 Road and Clifton Corridor improvements in Mesa County.
• Interstate 70 Business Loop corridor improvements in Grand Junction for CDOT Region 3.
• Solid wastewater design services in Pitkin County.
• Construction services for CDOT Region 3 and local agency roadway projects in Eagle County.

HDR is also the on-call consultant for several counties across the Western Slope, including Mesa, Montrose, Pitkin, Gunnison and La Plata.

“This office establishes a home base for HDR on the Western Slope to facilitate not only expanding services, but also allowing the team to be even more responsive to customers’ needs,” Colorado Area Manager Brad Martin said. “HDR understands the needs and conditions can be very different for communities outside the Front Range and in western Colorado. It’s important to HDR that we provide a level of service that this new office will help facilitate.”