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25 or so years working on not only schools, but on office, residential and other project types, building
a diverse foundation that would guide the rest of his career. Still,
it was education that helped him launch DMR in mid-1991, in the wake of a recession, as a three-person operation.
“There was not a lot of work in the business to go after,” he said. “I
was lucky to get some of the school clients that I had to continue with us to do their work.”
Among its early projects was
a new Sparta Middle School, a 127,000-square-foot facility that would open in the late 1990s. The local school board retained DMR early in the process after voters approved the project, which would become the largest building in Sussex County at the time and showcased the firm’s capabilities.
“I felt like I had hit a milestone doing that,” Rosenberg said, noting that the firm had only about 10 employees
at the time, making it all the more notable to work on the roughly $35 million project. It was also a chance to bring high-end design to a school after a period — starting around the 1950s, he said — in which aesthetics had seemingly faded from public buildings.
Even with the milestone, Rosenberg saw the need to branch out.
“It was important for us to diversify our practice because the last thing we want to do is specialize in one particular area and then when that area dries up ... we run out of work,” he said. “In my career I’ve seen some of those spikes and highs and lows, so we purposely diversified in all of these other areas.”
That was no easy task for a firm that was “known as a school architect,” he said, but DMR succeeded in the years that followed. Rosenberg attributes that to key hires such
as Pradeep Kapoor, who has spearheaded its growth in areas such as government and public safety, which were a natural choice due to its experience with school districts. That has led to a long list of projects such as the Bergen County Public Safety Operations Center in Mahwah and the Jersey City Justice Complex.
Additionally, Rosenberg cites the growth of DMR’s multifamily residential practice, which has
designed 10,000 units in New
Jersey in recent years, amid an ongoing apartment boom that
is poised to continue. That has included everything from Russo Development’s conversion of the historic Annin Flag factory in Verona to new midrise rental buildings throughout the state.
“We can’t build enough multifamily housing,” said Rosenberg, who hopes to see the pace continue for at least the near future. “I’m old enough to know that it doesn’t last forever, but we’re certainly taking the ride right now.”
The past decade has also seen the growth of DMR’s redevelopment and municipal planning practice, which is best-known
for crafting a rehabilitation plan for Hackensack’s downtown. Led by Francis Reiner, who joined the
firm in 2008 to
launch the practice, the team has guided the city’s efforts to create a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly
environment around its aging
Main Street corridor, helping to attract developers and resulting in more than 3,500 new apartments completed, under construction or in development in the district.
The effort has also yielded new community and outdoor public spaces, plus improved pedestrian and automobile circulation by bringing two-way traffic back to Main and State streets.
“From my perspective, the city had great leadership and was willing to listen to new ideas and
Francis Reiner
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