Missouri and Kansas Scrimmage Over HOK Sport Headquarters

Economic-development officials in Kansas are teaming up against Missouri rivals to lure Kansas City, Mo.-based HOK Sport + Venue + Entertainment (HOK-SVE) across the state line to nearby Overland Park, Kan.

By Consulting Specifying Engineer Staff September 5, 2002

Economic-development officials in Kansas are teaming up against Missouri rivals to lure Kansas City, Mo.-based HOK Sport + Venue + Entertainment (HOK-SVE) across the state line to nearby Overland Park, Kan.

Missouri development officials have not seemed as concerned about a possible HOK-SVE defection, although Kansas City’s mayor has met several times with the firm’s executives, reports the Kansas City Star . HOK-SVE’s current lease in a former garment factory building expires in 2005, and it is exploring two suburban Kansas sites as well as three downtown locations on the Missouri side of the divided city.

With 260 employees, SVE has participated in the design of more than 600 projects around the globe. Its operations have been headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., since its 1983 founding as a business arm of one of the industry’s largest architectural firms, HOK, based in St. Louis. HOK-SVE has also been credited with launching the rebirth of traditional baseball-park design, with its landmark Camden Yards project for the Baltimore Orioles. This football season the firm made design headlines for two new football stadiums for which it provided either design or project-management services, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., and Reliant Stadium in Houston.