Arcadis

History

The company has its origins in Nederlandsche Heidemaatschappij, a land reclamation company founded in 1888.

It changed its name to Arcadis in 1997. The name is derived from the mythological Arcadia. The logo is the fire salamander, a species which can only live in an ecologically stable environment.

Arcadis has grown via mergers and acquisitions since 1990, including the British firms AYH in 2005, EC Harris in 2011, and Hyder Consulting in 2014.

Axtell Yates Hallett / Arcadis UK

AYH was a British quantity surveying firm, whose head office was based in London with other offices in Manchester, Leeds, Newmarket, Birmingham, Camberley, Bristol, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The firm was founded by Stanley Axtell and his colleagues Messrs Yates and Hallett when they set up a Quantity Surveying business known as AYH in the City of London in 1946. Throughout this period, the firm grew steadily and broadened both its service base to include firstly project management and subsequently building surveying and facilities consultancy and its area of operation with the opening of UK regional and overseas offices. Following a period of retrenchment during the economic recession of the early 1990s, the firm was incorporated in February 1994. In March 1999, the holding of the major shareholders was purchased by a team of existing senior managers, led by David Thompson, already a major shareholder himself. At the beginning of 2002, AYH restructured its operations from a skill and regional office-based structure into fully integrated market sector groups.

The firm's core activity was the provision of Capital Project Services which represented 90% of the company's total turnover. Capital Project Services comprised Project Management and Cost Consultancy as well as a broad range of other construction and property services including health & safety, services engineering, program planning and dispute resolution. Over a number of years, AYH developed a range of Occupational Services, which included facilities management, facilities consultancy, out-sourcing of on-site support and under the banner of m3, a full relocation management service. The firm was a privately owned public limited company, owned by both its employees and an employee share ownership trust. One of the firm's last projects was Arsenal F.C.'s Emirates Stadium.

In 2005 AYH became a subsidiary of Arcadis NV and rebranded as Arcadis UK. The firm acquired Summerfield Robb Clark, a Scottish practice, in 2006. It also bought Berkeley Consulting, a practice specialising in infrastructure work in 2006.

Since 2010

Arcadis UK merged with EC Harris as on 2 November 2011 after a vote of EC Harris' 183 partners on 31 October 2011.

Arcadis North America

David Miller, Steve Blake and Suthan Suthersan of Geraghty and Miller which headquarterd in Long Island were instrumental to build the technical foundation to make Geraghty and Miller, which later became Arcadis North America.

Projects

Projects include:

AYH

Arcadis

Publications