Open for business

CELINA - Fanning Howey officials on Friday evening welcomed the public into its new design studio at 128 W. Market St. for a chance to check out the modern layout of the freshly renovated building.

Officials of the integrated architecture, interiors and engineering firm specializing in learning environment sought a work environment matching the skills its high-performing employees offer clients, said Zac Sprunger, company director of marketing.

In addition to lending itself well to collaboration, the new location just feels like a nice place to work, said Steve Wilczynski, executive director the Celina office. Roughly 37 of the company's 95 employees work at the new site.

"We've been in Celina for 60 years but the opportunity to place ourselves right here in the heart of downtown and be able to utilize a building that's been sitting here empty for years, we just saw this as a community win," he said.

The 9,244-square-foot building used to house the Casad company and prior to that it was a bank.

"Over the last year-and-a-half, we've been doing the planning and the design and the renovations for the this," Wilczynski said. "We've done some things to really open up this … area."

New windows were added, allowing for an excellent view of the courthouse and ample natural light to shine through.

Officials have repurposed the vault into an innovative work space where employees can remotely communicate with their colleagues and clients.

"The former vault has been converted into a conference room, kind of like a collaboration space," Wilczynski said.

Maximizing space, officials installed a second, equal-sized space atop the vault.

Collaboration plays a huge role at Fanny Howey as teams of in-house architects and engineers typically spend a year designing construction projects for schools and higher education.

Springer said many architecture firms in Ohio practice only in Ohio, but Fanning-Hower designs schools nationally.

"So there's a lot of that collaboration with clients that happens over Zoom (so) it's nice when we're working on a project in Utah or in Texas," he said.

Fanning Howey has undertaken projects in 37 states and the Philippines over the years. The company, including its offices in Dublin and Indianapolis, at the moment is busy with more than 200 projects, all relating to learning environments, according to Sprunger.

"(Founders Ron Fanning and Clair Howey) set the goal early on that we were going to be the best K-12 school design firm in the country and that's what we've been working for through the whole time," he said.

The firm's workforce consists of architects, engineers and other professionals.

"We also have interior designers, landscape architects, technology designers, construction administrators who are on site making sure that the projects are built the way that we designed them, protecting our clients' best interests," Sprunger explained.

Earlier in the day, the firm hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony to commemorate the opening of its new design studio that was attended by company officials and dignitaries.  

Sprunger and Wilczynski said the company is excited to be part of an ongoing revitilization of downtown Celina.

"There's a lot that's been happening downtown. I've lived here for 25 years and it's feeling like there's more energy downtown. There's a lot of shops opening," Wilczynski said.

"We're recommitting to the place where we started and being part of the revitalization downtown here, it's a really cool thing," Sprunger said.