AHBL started in 1969 as Noel R. Adams, PE and Associates, a structural engineering shop in Fife, Wash. A few mergers later, it’s a Tacoma firm with civil and structural engineers, planners, surveyors and outdoor-space designers, more than 135 people across Tacoma, Seattle, Spokane and the Tri-Cities. Schools, healthcare, parks, housing and public infrastructure make up much of the work, and its civil group handles site development, stormwater, utilities and transportation design. On the Renton School District’s $110 million Renton High School replacement, a three-story, 350,000-square-foot building going up beside the occupied school, AHBL handles civil engineering and site design alongside Skanska and BRIC Architecture.
AHBL works out of four Washington offices rather than one central shop with satellites: Tacoma on North 30th Street, Seattle at 1200 Sixth Avenue, Spokane on West Main Avenue, and the Tri-Cities office in Pasco. The firm frames that geography in permitting terms, describing its coverage as Tacoma, Seattle, Spokane, the Tri-Cities and the jurisdictions in between. That matters on site work, where plan review practice varies from one county to the next.
The civil group’s published scope goes well past a set of utility plans. Listed deliverables include feasibility studies, grading and site planning, erosion and sedimentation control plans, Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans, sanitary sewer and water system design, roadway design covering municipal design and complete streets, utility systems, and ADA compliance. AHBL notes that its SWPPPs are written to be built, with phasing, site access and material storage worked out so a contractor can follow the sequence. Stormwater design is tied to NPDES permitting and local codes, and the firm treats shifting regulatory requirements in the Pacific Northwest as a design input rather than a filing step.
Two items are worth knowing before engaging the firm. One is value engineering and plan review offered as a service in its own right: AHBL describes a systematic review process and does plan review on behalf of agencies, which puts it on both sides of the counter. The other is how early it wants to be involved. Site walks, concept-stage review of phasing, access, grading and cost, and identifying design conflicts before they reach a bid set are all described as part of the work.
The market list runs to twelve sectors and is broader than the school and park projects the firm is best known for: civic, federal and military, healthcare, higher education, housing, industrial, K-12 education, municipal design, parks, recreation and open space, policy planning, retail and commercial, and tribal. Policy planning sits alongside the building sectors, so comprehensive plan and code work is in scope as well as design.
The office network filled in over two decades. Seattle opened in Pioneer Square in 2001 and moved to the Park Place Building in 2005. Spokane opened in 2008 and relocated to downtown West Main Avenue in 2022. The Tri-Cities office opened in Pasco in 2011 and moved again in 2017. Five disciplines sit under one roof across those offices, and the firm points to that cross-disciplinary staffing as what clients use to work through complicated codes.
