This episode examines the Missouri Botanical Garden’s new Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center in St. Louis, winner of ENR’s National 2024 Best of the Best Project Award in the cultural category. The LEED Gold project houses an event center, gift shop, meeting spaces, restaurant, and auditorium, and included the renovation of the historic Linnean House, the oldest continuously operated public greenhouse west of the Mississippi. Insight into the project is provided by guests Zach Carter of IMEG and Deniz Piskin, Vice President for Facilities and Construction at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

The decision to build the new center was largely driven by continual growth in the number of annual visitors; last year 1.3 million people visited the Garden, far more than the previous center could have comfortably accommodated. “The way the original visitor center was constructed, there were a lot of little bottlenecks in getting visitors through the center and into the garden,” Deniz says.

The overall visitor experience was the other focus of the project. In addition to the vastly improved entrance and its accessibility, upon entering the new center, visitors are immersed in natural light as they view the exterior gardens through the facility’s south wall of windows. An architectural lantern, or skylight, in the lobby includes a custom-designed scrim perforated in a pattern inspired by tree canopies. These and many other biophilic elements bring the outdoors in. “Everywhere you look, there's something related to nature,” says Deniz.

Hidden from sight are the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, and technology systems designed by IMEG. Key features include a 50,000-gallon rainwater collection cistern to provide water for the plants in the greenhouse (botanical garden staff consider rain “liquid gold”); displacement ventilation/natural stratification in the 50-foot tall lobby to improve occupant comfort; rooftop solar arrays; and a generator devoted to providing backup power to maintain the appropriate climate for the greenhouse, which features a variety of plants from the Mediterranean.

Collaboration among all stakeholders was integral to the design-assist project, which was completed in multiple phases and included the construction of a temporary visitor center to keep the Garden open to visitors throughout construction.

Deniz advises other organizations contemplating such a milestone project to “start with a clear understanding of what your goals and objectives are and check back throughout the design process to ensure you are not deviating from your goals. That's what this team did. We always kept in mind our visitors, always kept in mind the visitor experience.”

See photos of the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center and read the IMEG project case study. For further information and photographs, read this feature published by Metropolis.

This episode of The Future Built Smarter examines the state of the hospitality market with IMEG’s Bob Winter—one in a series of conversations with the firm’s market sector leaders.

Most recently serving as an IMEG client executive in southern California, Bob is now turning his full attention to the growth and continued development of IMEG’s portfolio in the hospitality sector—a market he has led for several years and in which he has vast experience. “I absolutely am excited,” he says of his re-established focus.

“Our hospitality group includes MEP, structural, technology, and architectural lighting experts, and our teams are spread across the country, from New York and Philadelphia to Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, and Southern California. “Hospitality is relationship-based,” he adds, with teams assembled for specific projects based on the type of project and expertise required, regardless of where a project is located. “Projects led by developers or architects in Chicago could be taking place in other markets throughout the country, maybe South Florida, for example. It always helps if we have an office where the project is, which we often do, but the design can be done by a remote team.”

Bob’s key goals include expanding IMEG’s work in luxury resorts, adaptive reuse, and major renovation projects. “The more complicated, the more challenging projects—those are the ones we want to acquire more of,” he says. Efficiency is another priority. “I want to work with the team so that we’re very efficient in our execution, taking advantage of hospitality’s repetitive design elements. Every property is unique, but guest room stacks are often similar, for example.”

While economic uncertainty has been “top of mind” in the industry for the past year and a half, he says 2025 has been identified as a year of “cautious optimism.” One area of growth is in branded residences, which help finance hospitality projects. “We have a number of these that we were successful in winning—like a Dream Hotel with condos, a Waldorf project with residences, and a Breckenridge Grand Vacation project,” he says. Another area of opportunity is in property improvement plans (PIPs), which require hotels to undergo updates every seven to 10 years. “Certainly, during COVID, PIP requirements got lax,” Bob says. “Some properties look tired as a result. But PIPs are no longer optional going forward.”

A key geographic area for growth is the Sun Belt—particularly Florida, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina. “There’s quite a bit of work happening there,” he says. He also sees renewed investment interest in San Francisco and San Diego. “San Francisco is attracting private equity interest because properties can likely be obtained at a good deal, and recovery is noticeable.”

Despite the uncertainties in the market, Bob remains optimistic about the future of hospitality. “Hopefully by the end of Q1 or Q2, we’ll see a resurgence,” he says. “Consistent schedules, less delays, and more activity across the board—that’s what I’m hoping for.”

This episode of The Future Built Smarter features Steve Meyer, IMEG’s Transportation and Bridge Market Leader. “I try to get to know all of IMEG’s client executives and business developers to see where we can help fill the needs of our clients,” Steve says. This holistic approach, he adds, allows IMEG to provide comprehensive engineering design and services as needed for any project—from roadways to bridges to buildings—creating a seamless process for clients. “It makes it easy for the client that they can just hire one firm and fulfill quite a few services. Not only can we design their building, we also can design the road to their building.”

IMEG’s transportation projects include traffic studies, bridge, roadway, and highway design, rehabilitation and inspection, non-motorized corridors, and grant applications that secure funding for infrastructure improvements. In the wake of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, Steve says there have been many infrastructure improvements made across the country but there’s much more work to be done. “Overall, my impression of roads and bridges today is that they’re improving,” he says. “We’re getting better as a nation, but we still have a long way to go.”

Steve points to new techniques in the past several years that now can be used to extend the life of roads and bridges, helping clients get more for their money and delay more expensive replacement projects. Technological advances, too, have played a big role in how services are delivered. “The biggest change I’ve seen in transportation over the last 10 years has been the use of drone technology,” Steve says. “We can use drones to survey roads, inspect bridges, and even explore hard-to-reach areas. It saves time, improves safety, and gives us incredible precision.” Widespread use of 360-degree cameras also has allowed engineers to quickly and safely capture detailed views of infrastructure and sites. “We can even lower these cameras into manholes to inspect pipes and systems without putting anyone in harm’s way.”

Steve finds great satisfaction in helping provide the infrastructure that people need to improve their communities and way of life, one of the main reasons he became an engineer more than 20 years ago. A recent project he worked on in South Dakota, for example, replaced a deteriorating bridge on a roadway through a lake with a box culvert, a more economical, longer lasting, and adaptable solution. “The lake’s rising levels were inundating the road and damaging the bridge,” he says. “By replacing it with a box culvert designed to allow for future elevation changes, we ensured the road could remain open longer, even as water levels rise. This is critical for the community—it connects a rural school with the nearby town.”

Steve expects transportation projects to continue status quo over the next five to 10 years as the country continues to grapple with catching up on projects to repair, replace, and improve worn-out and outdated infrastructure. At the same time, he expects IMEG will play an ever larger role in such projects as the firm continues to grow and add new specialties. “We’ll continue to see a lot of transportation projects, but as more teams join IMEG, we’ll gain even more expertise and capacity to take on diverse challenges. Our goal in the transportation market remains the same: to help communities improve their roads and bridges.”