When the Great Recession struck in 2008, the principals at HMN Architects Inc. in Overland Park, Kan., decided it was time to plan for a future that wouldn’t resemble the past in the design business. The key players in the 20-year-old firm considered locations where it could grow, and Iowa emerged as one area where it could spread its wings. Steve Davis had left the state after graduating from Iowa State University in 1983, following an intense winter that made Davis decide his home state’s weather was just “crazy.” He returned late last summer and rented space at Regus executive suites in West Glen Town Center. Given the mild winter and warm spring that followed, he is inclined to say he brought Kansas City weather with him.

Why is Iowa attractive to HMN?

About the time the economy took the downturn, we were doing a strategic planning session with all of the shareholders in the office, and one of the things we decided as a group was if opportunities came up to expand, we wanted to aggressively evaluate them and see if they might be something we might want to consider. We didn’t want to bury our heads in the sand and wait for things to go back to the way they were, because things weren’t going back to way the way they were. Things were going to change one way or another. And a lot of times, opportunities turn up on those downturn sides.

What is your focus?

I would say 80 percent of our business is health care. Fifteen to 20 percent, depending on what the economy is doing, is going to be county and justice work. We’re working right now in Clay County on a jail and sheriff’s office. We have a couple of things going on over at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Health care is our focus. It’s what we do best. When we looked at the possibility of coming up here, one of the things we noticed was that there are a lot of excellent general architects, but we didn’t see any with the broad health-care experience that we have. One of the health-care contractors, JE Dunn Construction Co., who’s here in town, we work with a lot in Kansas City. One of the engineers we’re using, KJWW Engineering Consultants P.C., has offices in Des Moines. Iowa just looked like it presented some real opportunities.

Where is the health-care growth in the state?

Right now, the biggest stuff we see is in the eastern part of the state. University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics has a ton of work. They’re doing a big new children’s hospital. I wish we could have been up here sooner to have a shot at that. We may do some work in rural hospitals. We see a lot of clinic work going on. One thing about health care is that things are always changing. You don’t do one project and you’re done. We also see a lot of work coming up in the justice arena, a lot of projects at the county level. They are as affected by the economy as anyone else. We’ve been fortunate that in the last four country projects that we’ve done that had to go to a vote, all have passed. We have a couple more counties in Iowa that believe they need to do something. I have talked to folks in Dallas County; as fast as Dallas County is growing, they’re going to have to do something.

Is investment money still available for health-care projects?

On the clinics side, we’re seeing it. One of the things we’ve seen in health care is a lot of organizations holding their breath and seeing what’s going to happen with health-care reform. I get a lot of questions about the Supreme Court decision. I don’t know that that whole question is answered yet. They just want to know what the playing field is going to be. Critical care hospitals were a result of how reimbursements were going to be handled. Some people say the day of the big hospital is over; a lot of people say it’s going to be specialty hospitals and clinics. The field is changing. We’re excited about it. One of the principals in our office is fond of saying that there are a lot of smart guys in health care, and once they figure out what the rules are going to be, they’ll figure out how to make money. It’s kind of exciting times, along with challenging times.

What do you do for recreation?

Right now I’m enjoying being back in Iowa and checking out the various events and scenery. My wife had never been to the state fair, so we had the kids up and went to the state fair last year. We’ve just been enjoying a lot of stuff that Iowa has to offer. When the time came, I was excited to move back. It’s like a move back home for us.