SmithGroup, one of the nation’s leading integrated design firms, has opened its first office in the southeastern United States in Atlanta. The office in the Midtown neighborhood of the city is the firm’s 19th location worldwide, expanding the company’s already extensive footprint in the Higher Education and Health Care markets.

The Atlanta office is led by Robert Bull, who also serves as the director of the firm’s Washington, D.C. location. “Higher education institutions and health systems in Georgia and Alabama have long appreciated the design solutions developed through our unique culture of integrated design and depth of expertise nationally,” Bull said. “We’re excited to establish a local presence to offer closer engagement with our clients and join the region’s vibrant architecture and engineering communities.”

Channing McLeod, a principal specializing in health care planning and design based in Atlanta, recently joined SmithGroup to help launch an office in the region. As a key member of the leadership team, he is tasked with further establishing and expanding the firm’s presence in the region, building on his nearly three decades of serving health systems in Georgia. “SmithGroup’s culture of collaborative design and community engagement is a great benefit to client organizations,” McLeod said. “I’m excited to lead the charge in bringing our integrated design culture and inclusive values to the Southeast.”

SmithGroup has an established portfolio of work in the southeastern United States, already serving major health systems and colleges and universities in the region for the last four decades. Most recently, the firm designed the new Georgia State University College of Law building in downtown Atlanta and a patient tower expansion and bridge connections for Emory University Hospital. Elsewhere in Georgia, the firm designed the Engineering and Research Building on the campus of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro that opened in the fall of 2021 and a new patient tower at Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center that opened in April of this year.

The opening of the Atlanta office is the latest milestone in a pattern of steady strategic growth for the firm. “We continue to diversify our geographic presence, offering clients across the country our services closer to home and providing our employees more choices in where to reside,” said Russ Sykes, managing partner. “We look forward to continuing to build our Atlanta team to serve clients in the Southeast region with a team of local experts that draw on the firm’s national depth.”

The Atlanta office of SmithGroup is located at 999 Peachtree Street NE.