Architecture for oncology

AE Design Goes West

December 04, 2009
by Brendon Nafziger, DOTmed News Associate Editor
AE Design, Inc., an architecture firm that specializes in planning and construction of cancer-treatment facilities, opened the doors of its new Seattle office on October 1, according to the company.

Headquartered in Marietta, Ga., just outside Atlanta, AE design has, over the past 20 years, developed 120 oncology facilities, including a radiation oncology center at the University of Alabama.

According to the firm, the new office will give AE Design better access to markets in the West Coast.

"We've always operated nationally, but our emphasis has always been the East Coast and Central states," Timothy Black, director of program management at the company and the managing director of the Seattle office, tells DOTmed News. "Our intent is to service the Western and Mountain areas from the Seattle office."

Emerald City's cancer community

Although Seattle is best known as the home of certain coffee and software companies, it has a very strong, and increasingly locally important, biotech industry.

"The reason Seattle was an attractive city for us is because of the strong cancer treatment community here and also the strong educational base here," Black says.

In addition to being home to the University of Washington, a top-ranked medical research university, Seattle hosts the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

The new office, which sits in South Seattle, should have around three staffers by the end of the first year, Black says.