Huckabee Architects, the firmed based in Burnett Plaza downtown, and partner Godspeed Capital announced on Wednesday that the company acquired Rachlin Partners, LLC.
Terms were not disclosed.
Rachlin is a fully integrated architecture, planning, program management, and construction management company focused on education and government facilities in California and will enable Huckabee to expand its footprint beyond the Texas market. The California market is the second-largest K-12 Architecture, Engineering, and Consulting education market in the U.S.
Huckabee, founded in 1967, is the largest education architecture and design services firm in Texas, whose growth makes the state one of the largest and fastest-growing education facilities markets in the country.
Throughout its history, Huckabee has focused exclusively on the planning and design of innovative learning environments in Texas, primarily in the K-12 public education market, but is also now expanding into early learning centers, higher education, and museums.
“Rachlin Partners’ focus on education, government, architecture, and social impact is well-aligned with our platform’s strategy,” said Huckabee CEO Chris Huckabee in a statement. “Their addition to our platform will not only grant us entry into one of the nation’s largest and fastest growing AEC markets, but also strengthen the Huckabee platform through Rachlin’s expert team, longstanding relationships with key school district administrators, and expansive Huckabee, which employs more than 240 employees across six offices, is consistently ranked as one of the top education architectural design firms in the nation.
Headquartered in Culver City, California, Rachlin, founded in 1982, has completed more than 500 education-focused projects across Southern California, with 80% of its projects involving public funding, and has received numerous awards for excellence in design, architecture, project management, and client satisfaction.
Said Michael Rachlin, founding partner of Rachlin: “We are thrilled to partner with Godspeed Capital and join the Huckabee platform, whose expertise in the K-12 AEC markets nationally are a powerful complement to Rachlin’s own collaborative, client-centric public education and government architecture focus. We look forward to integrating into the growth platform and working alongside Huckabee to build upon our core areas of expertise, invest in our technology-enabled design solutions, and expand Rachlin’s geographic footprint.”
Last month, Huckabee announced that it had received a strategic investment from Godspeed, a lower middle-market defense and government services, solutions, and technology focused private equity firm.
The firm said at the time that the investment aligned with Godspeed’s government focused investment strategy, as the education facilities market in the U.S. is largely funded by state government issued bonds. Furthermore, Godspeed and Huckabee intended to expand their reach to government entities through an organic and acquisition growth strategy going forward, company officials said in a news release last month.