| Marc Margulies
Title: Principal, Margulies Perruzzi Architects
Age: 60
Experience: 34 years
Dan Perruzzi
Title: Principal, Margulies Perruzzi Architects
Age: 57
Experience: 33 years
Margulies Perruzzi Architects is one of Boston’s largest architecture and interior design firms, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Founded in 1988 by Marc Margulies, who previously served as Fidelity Investments’ manager of real estate design and construction projects, the firm changed its name to Margulies Perruzzi Architects in September 2008 to recognize Dan Perruzzi’s 14 years of leadership with the company. The firm specializes in corporate, healthcare, real estate development and lab design. Since its founding, the company has designed more than 5 million square feet of space in the Greater Boston area and elsewhere.
Q: Why don’t you start with a bit of the company’s history?
A: Margulies: Our first office was at 186 Lincoln St. We were only there for two or three years, then we went to the Peabody Office Furniture building at 234 Congress St., and we were there for 17 years. We’ve been here [at 308 Congress St.] now for five.
Q: How has the firm changed over time?
A: Perruzzi: We topped out in 2006 at either 50 or 51. We’re just north of 40 right now. [The recession] happened to us just like it happened to everyone else, though not as badly as many. But we’ve had a lot of growth, not just in terms of company size, but also the kinds of projects we take on. There are a ton of new building projects and a ton of large rehabs we’ve worked on. When I started, we did most of our work in the suburbs, and collectively we said we wanted to do more work in the suburbs. I think it’s completely flipped now where our work is mostly downtown stuff.
Q: How have your relationships with clients changed over the years?
A: Perruzzi: There’s a lot more [property] ownership that’s external to the city. In the past, a lot of owners were headquartered here. A lot of property owners are now outside the city, the state or outside the country. And each of those has its own kinds of challenges. Lots of times, when you’re dealing with someone that’s in a senior position in the real estate department, in the old days, that was probably the primary real estate person for that company. Today it’s more likely that he’s the regional Boston real estate leader reporting to someone in New York, or it’s the owner’s project manager. When I started in the business, there was no such thing as an owner’s project manager. Today, owners hire project managers to manage their projects. In a good situation it’s not a layer between us and the owner; in a good situation it’s a facilitator that helps get the project done, but it can be a layer between us and the owner, and sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the communications just breaks down. In the old days, there were a smaller number of parts.
Margulies: In the same way that there were fewer people outsourced, there were a lot more in-house people on corporate staffs. When I was at Fidelity from 1983 to 1988, I had 25 architects and designers working for me. Most firms now don’t have a design department. And if they have project managers, it’s only a few. There are some very large corporations in the area whose real estate staffs are two or three people. When I was at Fidelity, there were 250 real estate people.
Top Five Reasons To Work At Margulies And Perruzzi:
- The firm has a fun and collaborative work environment.
- The principals treat employees like family and trust them to do their jobs.
- The marketing department is an ace with media, more than just social networking.
- Cutting-edge technology and innovative design techniques.
- Happy hour at
- “Beer:30” on the roof deck.
