Architects Have Designs on Public Contracts : The partners of Orange-based Francis + Anderson want to merge their different skills for optimum impact. They hope minority incentives will open doors.

Christopher Francis and Gladstone (Andy) Anderson are beginning an architectural partnership with different dreams: Francis’ ideal job would be to design a high-rise. Anderson would build a complex such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where people come to learn and enjoy.

The men are also coming together with different skills.

Each has more than 14 years of experience. Francis has worked with school districts and designed an elementary school in the Los Angeles County city of Lennox that has been nationally recognized by his peers. Anderson’s expertise is in larger projects. He supervised the design of the Upjohn pharmaceutical distribution center in Simi Valley and the expansion of two newspaper plants.

The partners hope that their differences will complement each other and bring dynamism to the endeavor.

Orange-based Francis + Anderson Architects has been open for only four months, and its principals believe it is the only wholly owned minority firm of its kind in Orange County. They hope to use California Minority Business Enterprise incentives to open some doors. On contracts where public money is involved, the state’s goal is that 15% of the contracting dollars go to minority-owned companies, 5% to female-owned companies and 3% to disabled veterans.

Francis + Anderson plans to focus on public-sector projects, notably schools and medical facilities, especially those associated with universities.

As Francis points out, voters last year approved $1 billion in bonds for new projects and renovations of the type his firm is targeting. Another $900 million in bonds are scheduled to be voted upon in June.

“There is a lot of demand for schools,” Francis said. “We are anticipating the baby boomer ‘echo’--children of baby boomers who are in fourth to eighth grades now.”

Public-sector construction is one of the few growth areas in the real estate industry at the moment, according to the American Institute of Architects/California Council, a trade association.

For architects, the slump in commercial and residential building--which is going into its fourth year--has translated into an unemployment rate of about 20% in California, the council said. That compares, as of November, with a 10.1% unemployment figure statewide, and 7% for Orange County.

Anderson, who left Jamaica in 1970 to attend USC, had been laid off from the Santa Ana office of the Austin Company, a Cleveland-based architecture firm. The local office had been steadily cutting staff; employing about 150 in early 1990, compared to about 70 today.

Francis had left a partnership with Ralph Allen & Partners in Santa Ana, believing that he could attract more business on his own.

Since they joined forces, Francis and Anderson have done remodeling work for retailers TSE Cashmere, Everything but Water and Sears Roebuck & Co. The firm has also redesigned homes in West Los Angeles, Culver City and Beverly Hills.

Their goal is to make a name for the firm by designing a couple of higher-profile projects. For that, they believe the Minority Business Enterprise incentives will provide some opportunities.

“We want to be recognized for our design talent,” not their race, Francis said. And his partner added: “Ultimately, when you’re designing, you don’t think of yourself as a black architect.”

But they also believe that there is risk involved in operating within that system.

“Principals in white-owned firms don’t believe in affirmative action,” Francis said. “They perceive it as a threat.” For years, the system has been abused, he said.

White contractors have signed over 51% of their companies to wives in order to qualify as women-owned companies, Francis said, though the wives have little or no involvement in the business.

And some minority- or women-owned firms act merely as brokers, Francis said, doing a nominal amount of work on projects--for a nominal compensation. The broker-like firms use their minority status to win the projects, then take a fee from a firm that cannot qualify as a Minority Business Enterprise, he said.

The state has been cracking down on such abuse in the past two years, they said.

But the problems remain. The abuses are severe enough that the American Institute of Architects/California Council, along with two other trade organizations representing consulting engineers and land surveyors, plan to petition the state Legislature this session to modify the law.

The modification would require the majority owner in a company to be a licensed design professional, said Judy Sektnan, director of governmental relations for the architects’ group. “In many of these cases, where ownership is shifted, we feel there is real abuse,” Sektnan said.

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