Ryan Schutt, Principal, Office Director & Studio Design Leader Commercial/Mixed-Use, HKS Dallas
Mixed-use development seems to be the future of real estate. “We are seeing more cross-practice opportunities as well. Our sports practice partners with commercial mixed-use to provide value because an entertainment district is a vibrant part of making a stadium successful 24/7,” says Ryan Schutt, principal, office director, and studio design leader for Commercial/Mixed-Use at HKS Dallas.
Could you share with us maybe some of your initial priorities during your first year?
I’ll give you the background of the position itself. HKS is celebrating our 85th anniversary this year, and we have continued to maintain Dallas as a home base. Over the last 10 plus years, we’ve seen a large growth in our global presence, and that has shifted us to focus on global impact, leaving a void for accountability on the local scale. At the beginning of the year, the executive board met and recognized this void and sought somebody to represent this firm publicly and build internal culture in Dallas. After a two-to-three-month interview process, I was selected for the position in August and began formulating my ideas.
To be the first is quite a unique opportunity I’m excited about. My focus is going to be on two target areas: internally building our culture and externally making ourselves have the strongest brand presence in Dallas. Our vision statement is through limitless thinking we will be the most influential firm in our industry.
We have tons of talent. We have tons of resources. We have great young leaders and great energy coming in from our new hires. We just needed somebody to tie all that together and be the glue to make us all pull in the same direction so that we’re being and living our vision statement.
What are some of the key highlights and achievements over this past year?
We have some great wins across our studios that have been exciting. The first we’ll highlight is the new pediatric campus with Children’s Health. That’s a joint venture with Perkins & Will. They’re replacing the existing campus, and the project is $5 billion. I’ve had the opportunity to sit in on meetings and participate in some of the development going on. It’s a tremendous undertaking. We’ve got a large team working on it. The scale of the project is massive, but it’s going to be designed as one of the largest, most transformative pediatric centers in the nation. That’s a big win from our healthcare side.
Recently, in Grandscape, Cosm just opened, which is an immersive entertainment venue that blurs the line between the virtual and the real. It’s essentially an 87-foot diameter dome that fully immerses you in the sports and entertainment world. You can purchase tickets to attend an event there, and you are sitting in the midfield of a football game or you’re in the ring in the middle of a boxing match, or a soccer game, or name your sport. We don’t see Cosm as a niche thing just secluded to sports. Cosm could also apply to education and how we learn. We can use these things to teach in an immersive way. That’s a really exciting opportunity that just opened, and we’re proud of it.
We also have the Forest Theater that broke ground and is under construction. The rebirth of this historic venue will turn it into a multi-use community space that revitalizes South Dallas and showcases the neighborhood’s artistic talents. As an adaptive reuse project, it will transform back to the iconic piece that it was and connect back to the community’s culture.
Are there any specific trends that you’re seeing in the demand for your services?
Office continues to be a little bit stagnant across the board. We’re seeing the suburban market still be the hot area for the Friscos, the Planos, the Colony, and McKinney. You’re seeing those massive billion-dollar projects that are giant mixed-use developments. In the urban core, we continue to see opportunities with the vacant office buildings and ownership groups coming in to create dynamic mixed-use developments. Across the board, it’s all about creating developments where people are finding financial success with diversity of use strategies.
We are seeing more cross-practice opportunities as well. Our sports practice partners with commercial mixed-use to provide value because an entertainment district is a vibrant part of making a stadium successful 24/7. You see that in Arlington with Live! by Loews in the backyard by the ballpark. The key to finding a successful, vibrant project is creating dynamic and diverse uses, creating 24/7 usability.
Another market where demand is higher than ever is mission critical. Data centers are a huge driver in the architecture business. We can’t build them fast enough, especially with the immersion of AI; they need so much data, and they need all these processors. What we’re seeing are opportunities there to recycle the heat gain that’s created by these and how we can make these sustainable buildings and green buildings in ways that they need to be part of our ecosystem of the economy. We make them in a way that’s green, and sustainable.
How are you leveraging technology and innovation to enhance your efficiencies?
We’ve talked about Cosm as an immersive technology. That’s a market we see becoming more and more prevalent, whether in entertainment, education or other applications. AI is a hot word in our industry. We are taking the approach of being cautious but optimistic. We’re looking for what are the foundational ways that we can leverage this to improve our business analytics. We’re able to drive the tool in ways that allow us the opportunity to leverage our brain skills better. Let AI take a more mundane stance. We have to understand with AI the terms of the details when it comes to issues such as intellectual property and legal risks. We want to leverage it in a way that lets us use our time to service our clients better.
What steps are you taking to minimize the environmental impact?
In 2023, we announced that we are a carbon-neutral firm, and that was a big milestone for us. We’re continuing to push towards net zero. We have a goal of eliminating 100% of operational carbon from all of our projects by 2030. We don’t just want to say it; we want to live it. We want to keep pushing and reach carbon zero. We’re seeing it in the marketplace as well. Everybody knows the 2030 goal, and it’s sneaking up on us. It seemed so far away 15 years ago, and now it’s right here. We’re seeing active steps to make sure we’re hitting those goals.
What excites you most about the future of the architecture and design industry, how do you see it evolving over the next few years?
What excites me the most about it is just continuing to see this return to the core. In the last few years, we’ve gone from a handful of residents downtown to 15,000. That’s incredible. We’re seeing people choosing to live downtown, creating a vibrant urban core. I’m excited just about the continued growth that happens in Uptown with the large mixed-use developments happening in the Knox area. The urban redevelopment of all these large towers, including Comerica Bank, which was recently announced. These big empty office buildings are going to have a different life, and seeing that life cycle happening and where the downtown urban core is having a strong comeback is exciting. There’s so much potential still on the horizon that the momentum is not slowing here. I hope we can continue to add components that enhance our vibrancy, whether it’s another sports team or in other ways.
