P3Architecture�s success is largely due to maintaining a diverse portfolio of projects in Saskatchewan, while focusing on superior service to its clients.

Premier Business Partners:

Brownlee Beaton Kreke Graham Construction PCL (AB)

After little more than a decade in business, P3Architecture (P3A) Ltd. says it has become a design trendsetter and industry leader in its hometown of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The company was founded in 1996 by Joseph Pettick, Colin Phillips and Luigi Mazzotti. Pettick operated his own practice in Saskatchewan since 1954, Principal Architect James Youck says.

Beginning in 1998, the firm began to transition to a younger group of owners and partners. That year, Youck and current partners Patrick Kelly and Robert Beug joined the firm. Senior Architectural Technologist David Brown joined the company in 2005. They, along with founding partner Luigi Mazzotti,  round out the partnership group.

“In 1996, when the company was formed, there were five people in the organization working out of a basement office,” Youck says. “Since then, it has grown into a company with offices in Regina and Saskatoon, with 28 partners and staff between the two offices.”

Youck says the majority of P3A’s projects are in Saskatchewan. “We’ve grown to become a trendsetting company in the design profession in Saskatchewan,” he says. “We are the leading design firm in southern Saskatchewan and our smaller office in Saskatoon, located in the northern half of the province, is beginning to grow on its own accord.”

Because Saskatchewan is small in terms of population – with a little more than 1 million residents in a large geographic area the size of Texas – it is a challenge to deliver services to customers across the province, Youck says.

“Regina and Saskatoon’s populations hover around 200,000 residents each, so they’re relatively small communities where everyone knows everyone,” he explains. “The economy in Saskatchewan has begun to accelerate. For the first time in a generation, people are moving into the province instead of moving away.

“There is a significant amount of oil in Saskatchewan and our production is second only to Alberta in Canada,” he continues. “In the ’40s, Calgary and Regina were close to the same size. Saskatchewan is the last largely untapped oil reservoir in North America and shares in the oil sands with Alberta.  We sell one-third of the world’s uranium, as well as diamonds and the majority of the world’s potash, which is used for fertilizer. This is augmented by our traditional role as Canada’s bread basket. There are billions of dollars being invested here, and aging infrastructure is beginning to be replaced.”

Youck says P3A is in a “remarkable position as a young firm” because the average age of architects in Saskatchewan is close to 60, and in the entire province, there are fewer than 90 registered resident architects. “The average age of our profession is approaching retirement, and there are only 90 of us here to begin with,” he notes. “I turn 40 this year, and my architectural partners are in their 40s. We are the largest firm in the province owned by people of our age, and this comes at a time when the province is beginning to boom. We have tremendous growth potential.”

High-Profile Projects
P3A has several high-profile jobs underway, Youck says. For the LEED=registered Saskatchewan Disease Control Lab (SDCL) project, the company partnered with an architectural firm from Alberta that specializes in Level 3 labs. These labs require a high degree of biocontainment, and therefore,  have specialized design elements to consider. The project, located in Regina, is worth $45 million.

“It is a high-intensity public health lab,” Youck says. “It’s designed to be a cutting edge, state-of-the-art lab that will be a benchmark for public health laboratories in Canada and North America.”

The company is also building the $50 million University of Regina Laboratory Building addition, the LEED-registered $38 million Regina Provincial Correctional Center and the $21 million RCMP Heritage Center Museum, also in Regina. High-profile, signature buildings are the type of projects in which the firm specializes.

Youck says one of the keys to the company’s success has been maintaining a diverse portfolio and skill set while focusing on superior service to its clients. “Because we have a small marketplace, we cannot specialize if we hope to survive and grow as a firm,” he explains. “We end up being generalists. Subsequently, we seek out specialists in building types to augment our team and provide knowledge transfer to our designers and staff. That way the skills brought to our team from other consultants stay in the province through knowledge transfer.

"This philosophy strengthens our firm and the local consulting industry. SDCL is the first significant public health lab project in Saskatchewan since the 1950s and there won’t be another one for a very long time.  We focus on high-quality design, excellent project management and contract document administration, [and provide] a high level of service coupled with our own creativity and our ‘sensible sustainablilty’ approach.”

P3A continuously looks for opportunities to create strategic partnerships, he says. “We believe we’re the strongest Saskatchewan company from a technical, sustainable and design perspective, but we recognize when doing specialized projects like museums that there aren’t a lot of them that get built in our part of the world,” he says.

For the RCMP Heritage Center Museum, P3A teamed up with Arthur Erickson, Canada’s most renowned architect, and NMAINC from Vancouver, he says. “They came in as our experts on museum design,” he adds.

Another project, the new Government of Canada Building (GCOB) in Regina, is a $21 million retrofit of a 1970s downtown shopping mall and office tower into a new GOCB. It was first LEED Silver Certified building in Regina. This project “exemplifies the firm’s expertise in sustainable design, coupled with a dedication to design excellence,” Youck says.