NEW CASTLE– A noted architectural firm that has been firmly planted in New Castle for 124 years has pulled up roots and left town.
Eckles Architecture & Engineering, located in a Victorian-style house at 301 N. Mercer St., closed its doors last week after merging with DRAW Collective, a Pittsburgh-based architectural-engineering firm.
The Eckles staff has two offices in Cranberry, Butler County, as a result of the merge, and hereafter will go under the name of DRAW Collective.
The merger took effect July 1 with DRAW, which has its main office in Mount Lebanon, Allegheny County.
Since the heyday of New Castle in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Eckles has always been a place where loyal staff would work for their entire careers, reflected longtime employee, architect and former owner, David Esposito.
And through the century, the firm has contributed to the designs of many significant buildings in New Castle, some of which have since been razed.
In Mercer County, recent designs include Sharon’s Case Avenue Elementary School and the conversion of Grove City’s Hillview Intermediate School into an elementary school. But its ties go back to the early 1900s with buildings such as Grove City’s Central and Lincoln schools, and iconic ones on the Grove City and Westminster college campuses.
Esposito worked for Eckles four months shy of 40 years, alongside longtime employee Robert Naugle, who retired in 2013.
“I was the fifth president, and Dave was the sixth,” Naugle said.
Esposito retired in January and sold his part of the business to Mark Scheller and Jeremy Beatty. He said he learned a few months later that they had entered the merger.
“When I retired, I told them it was my desire that the company continue to run here, because the cost of living is low and it’s a good place,” he said. “I was surprised to find out about the merger. I understand it’s more opportunity, but I feel bad, because it was my intent to let this continue. We were one of the 50 oldest practicing firms in the country. We’ve had a lot of employees who came and never left.”
Although he regrets seeing the firm leave, he acknowledged that Cranberry is a growing place and presents a lot of opportunity.
Scheller added that one reason for the relocation is to attract top talent to the company.
“In the recent years, we have been challenged with attracting young professionals to the New Castle location,” he said. “We have interviewed our young architect interns and asked them if they will be living in New Castle following their graduation from local colleges. The general response is that they will not be living in New Castle after graduation.
“They have expressed the desire to be in a thriving community with young professionals similar to themselves. The Cranberry location will allow us to attract the young professionals who are critical to the future of our firm.”
Scheller had become the 11th or 12th principal of the Eckles firm, at the helm with Esposito, who had become a principal in 1991 with Naugle. Naugle had 40 years with the firm.
Longtime architect and former president R. Kay Thompson previously had retired in 2002.
For many years, the ownership had been shared by two or three individuals.
Thompson, who lives out of state now, had been with the firm 52 years and became president when William George Eckles of the Eckles family line retired.
Eckles’ grandfather, William George Eckles, started the firm in 1898. His son, Robert, took over in the 1920s, and William George took over in the 1950s.