The Concrete Bungle

Obviously, HNTB isn't the only designer of uninviting buildings in Kansas City. "I think almost everything we've done up until the last 10 years could be described as menacing at street level," Vicki Noteis says. Besides, the most visionary designers' aspirations are always limited by the tastes and budgets of their clients.

What's unique about HNTB is the way the city seems to rely on it for solutions to problems the firm had a hand in creating.

In 2003, for instance, HNTB produced for the city the Downtown Land Use and Development Plan (cost: $100,000). The plan sought to build on recommendations and strategies identified in previous reports, such as the Civic Council's Downtown Corridor Redevelopment Strategy (commonly referred to as the "Sasaki plan," named after the consulting firm that wrote the report) and the FOCUS Urban Core Plan.

HNTB's plan began with a description of how downtown Kansas City had steadily lost businesses to the suburbs. A growing number of urban housing choices, however, signaled a "renewed interest in the characteristics of a traditional downtown."

And just what is a characteristic of a traditional downtown? "Pedestrian friendliness" -- historically a pronounced weakness of HNTB designs -- was first on the list.

HNTB would not be a $500 million company if its bridges teetered and its turnpikes ran into mountainsides. And, obviously, one way to stay in governments' good graces is to do the job right. The company points with special pride to the job it performed in 1969 at the Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, where 10,000 feet of runway were built in 40 days.

With offices from coast to coast, HNTB is a prolific designer and engineer of ribbon cutters -- that is, things that cost a lot of money, such as airport terminals, convention centers, sports stadiums and rail tunnels. The firm has designed everything from a gym at the Pentagon to the Riverfront Park in Atchison, Kansas. If it's made of concrete, stone or steel, chances are HNTB knows how to build it.

A firm of HNTB's size and stature is expert at understanding how governments spend money. One way to develop this expertise is to hire former government officials. Last December, the firm announced that retired Army general and former U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey would serve as chairman of its subsidiary Federal Services Corporation, which does security planning and military-base design for the government. An HNTB press release noted that, as drug czar, McCaffrey had coordinated a $19.2 billion budget. HNTB's hiring of former government officials who know budgets and bureaucracies dates as far back as the 1960s, when the former head of the Federal Highway Administration got a job there.

John Norquist, the former mayor of Milwaukee, says HNTB is "well-positioned" in Wisconsin, a point The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigated last year. Last August, the newspaper reported that the Wisconsin Department of Transportation had signed a $164,962 contract with HNTB to maintain its inventory of road signs. Prior to HNTB getting the contract, the work had been done by a short-term employee who cost the state $30,000 a year. The contract was later rescinded, and Governor Jim Doyle -- who received $47,000 in campaign donations from HNTB employees in 2002 and 2003 -- issued new rules for contracts.

The Journal Sentinel also reported that HNTB and another company had received a $685,000, no-bid contract to build a Web site that monitored the progress of work on an interchange. One Web developer told the newspaper he "would have been dancing in the streets" to be paid $300,000 for the same job. An HNTB official defended the contract, telling the Journal Sentinel the firm was "damn proud" of the Web site.

In 2002, HNTB donated $25,000 to a campaign led by the mayor of Los Angeles to keep the San Fernando Valley from seceding from the city. A few months after it made the donation, HNTB won a contract to plan a medium-size airport for the city. The following year, the mayor proposed spending $9 billion to modernize Los Angeles International Airport.

In Ohio, the director of the state turnpike commission resigned in 2002, after an investigation revealed a "free flow of gratuities" from contractors to turnpike employees. The investigation found HNTB to be among the grateful, treating the director and other employees to golf games, meals and various outings 21 times during a period in which HNTB landed $2.8 billion in turnpike business.

But taking clients to dinner and making campaign contributions are practically matters of etiquette in the business world. HNTB isn't considered a sinister company -- connected might be a better word. "They're basically honorable people," says Norquist. He adds that he sometimes has agreed with HNTB's recommendations. "It's not all their fault bad stuff gets built, at least not theirs alone. They're basically doing what they're asked to do."

Still, Norquist says, it would have been nice if HNTB had reminded state and regional transportation officials that mass transit might be a better option than the endless thatch of expressways the firm is usually asked to design. "But they're trying to make money, so you don't start arguing with your client."

HNTB's proposal to build decks over a portion of the south leg of the loop is not a revolutionary idea. The Sasaki and the FOCUS plans talked about reconstructing the north leg into a boulevard. Undoing the north leg is appealing because it would remove the barrier separating the River Market from downtown. Also, the north leg is less heavily traveled than the south leg, making it more amenable to change.