Side Notes: Momentum in Madison and Beyond

Located in the heart of downtown overlooking Wisconsin’s Capitol Dome, BWBR’s Madison office provides proximity to the ever-expanding markets statewide. Leading the talented, tight-knit team is Leigh Streit, who joined us for this episode of Side Notes to share insights into the Madison market, the opportunities shaping Wisconsin’s future, and the work driving meaningful impact across the region.

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Transcript

Welcome To Side Notes

Matt Gerstner 0:00

Welcome to Side Notes, the bite-sized version of Side of Design. In 15 minutes or less, we'll explore one idea, one insight, or one conversation worth hearing. Let's get to it. Welcome to Side Notes, the bite-sized version of Side of Design. I'm your host, Matt Gersner. Joining me today is Leigh Streit, principal with BWBR from our Madison, Wisconsin office. And I'm looking forward to our conversation today as we talk about the architecture market in the Madison area in Greater Wisconsin. Leigh, thanks for making time to be here.

Leigh Streit 0:29

Thanks, Matt. Happy to be here.

Lee Street’s Role At BWBR

Matt Gerstner 0:31

Alright. So these are short podcasts for these side notes. We don't waste a lot of time, and I'm just going to jump right into our first question. I want to start by asking you to tell our listeners just a little bit about your role at the Madison office and the BWBR Madison office in general.

Leigh Streit 0:47

Yeah, so as you mentioned, I am principal here in our Madison office and uh currently office leader as well. So my role is is sort of split roughly evenly between you know business development and marketing for those projects that we've sort of yet to start on, but also to help manage, problem solve, and support our team for those projects that we already have underway. And that means all the way through, through construction.

Matt Gerstner 1:17

Right. Fantastic. So can you tell our listeners a little bit about the office in general, too? Like where we're located or, you know ...

Leigh Streit 1:25

Yeah, we have one of the best office spaces, I I believe, um, in my in my biased uh opinion, right on the square. So, and we're on the fifth floor of the U.S. Bank building that's locally known as the U.S. Bank Building. We have floor-to-ceiling glass and we stare right at the Capitol Dome across the way on the square. So really great location when you when you think about nice weather, taking a walk, a lunchtime walk around the square, going out to meet people during or after work. And you know, we see a lot of people in our network out doing the same. So it's a lot of energy down here, downtown Madison.

Matt Gerstner 2:06

Fantastic. Absolutely love it. So if we were to think about the market, the architecture market in like the Madison area or greater Wisconsin in general, what kind of things are you excited about this year? What are you seeing and hearing?

Leigh Streit 2:21

You know, I'm I'm excited. I think I think really uh a lot of markets, sort of locally, statewide, regionally, however you want to think about it, they seem to be fairly healthy, I would say. We do a lot of work with the state of Wisconsin and have since our office opened here in in I think late 2011. And and we're fortunate to be doing some nice projects for them right now. But even when you think about the private sector, healthcare, S&T, those are very healthy markets here. And and I think that people are sort of cautiously optimistic right now. Interest rates keep dropping ulittle by little. Yep, yep. And and there the and there's a need to be beyond that, too. You know, that's in both of those markets, in the education market as well, there's always some challenge to be to be worked on.

Biggest Challenges: Schedule And Tech

Matt Gerstner 3:20

Yeah, for sure, for sure. So when when you're thinking about that, you just kind of said the magic word. What are the biggest challenges that you're seeing, you know, whether it's for clients or just the architecture industry?

Leigh Streit 3:31

Yeah, I think clients, you know, the the theme for me and the and the the projects I'm working on right now is is schedule. You know, we like to work on complex projects, right, where there's many, many facets to be considered and understanding all you know how all of those facets, uh, you know, in a in a big and or just complicated project, how those can affect the schedule is is something that I guess takes a lot of attention and and sort of vigilance as as things change as to how that might impact design schedule, construction schedule, et cetera.

Matt Gerstner 4:14

Yeah, I can totally see that.

Leigh Streit 4:16

But you know, in in terms of our teams sort of internally, I think, you know, a lot is changing on the the technology side, the way that we use technology. There's so many things, and this is uh I'm out of my depth here. I just know from you know the team meetings that there's a lot to be considered. What are the things that can help us? And what are the things that are maybe not worth the time, you know, the initial investment of of figuring out how to use it and and will it actually help us solve our clients' problems?

Matt Gerstner 4:50

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess that's right. You know, in the end, whatever tools we're using, if they aren't helping us solve the client's problems, they're not working well for us, right?

Leigh Streit 4:58

Right. Yep.

Two Education Projects Worth Watching

Matt Gerstner 5:00

All right. So thinking about the markets, thinking about the challenges that we've got. If you were to just take a second, think about it, is there a project that stands out to you that maybe you'd want to tell our listeners a little bit about?

Leigh Streit 5:15

Yeah, you know, we've got a number of projects recently and and underway right now that are a lot of them are are pretty exciting, but I think maybe there's two that I want to mention here, and they're kind of nice contrasting projects. And they're both on the education side, which is where I spend quite a bit of my time. One is the University of Wisconsin River Falls Sci-Tech Project, it's a science and technology innovation center that is just open for classes this past January. It is a large, 100 almost 140,000 square feet science building that contains physics, psychology, chemistry, biology labs, classrooms, offices, and a university business collaboration center.

Matt Gerstner 5:58

Yeah.

Leigh Streit 5:59

And then the other one I want to mention is really a series of projects for Madison College, Local Technical College, and we've been working for them for the last five years on a number of small projects. And the I think the thing that is interesting there is that those projects link together in a meaningful way to gradually turn over space on their campus here in Madison. And while small, they are impactful and they're also really beautiful.

Closing Thanks And Wrap

Matt Gerstner 6:27

Honestly, Lee, you've given us so much information on what's going on in Wisconsin, what's going on in the markets there, and uh a little bit of information about a couple of fun projects too that have uh happened in the last year or so. So thank you for the time and the insights you provided today. And uh thank you to all of our listeners for listening and tuning in.

Leigh Streit 6:48

Thanks, Matt.