Two thousand and twenty-one gave us quite the year!
I would love to write that the pandemic has slowed down and ended its reign over the last two years, but unfortunately, that’s still not the case. However, there have been significant developments to co-existing with Covid-19. This year gave us the vaccine and some much-needed optimism after spending the first half in lockdown.
Of course, even the pandemic’s darkest days could not slow down Nadi Group—a lot happened this year. Even though the pandemic kept us from working together in the office, we still added new team members, traveled around North America and strengthened our services across each practice area.
Without spending too much time building anticipation, let’s get to the good stuff. Here are the five cool things that happened at the Nadi Group this year!
Five cool things that happened at the Nadi Group
A realized K.W. Nasser
K.W. Nasser broke ground (started construction) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in 2019. This year, we celebrated the plaza’s official opening to the public in August.
Developer and retired professor Karim Nasser, who inspired the project’s name and helped spearhead its realization, came to the opening ceremony, reportedly beaming with pride at how well it turned out.
If you’re unfamiliar with Nadi Group’s role in this project, our senior landscape architects designed the central plaza and water feature, that connects the three new towers near the bank of the South Saskatchewan River.
Check out these awesome drone photos compared with the perspective renderings to see how far these concepts have come.
Welcome to the team
A couple new faces joined the Nadi Group team in 2021. Give a hearty welcome to Victor Odusanya and Nino Sanchez.
Victor joined our Winnipeg office as the firm’s design intern. He is a recent graduate of the University of Manitoba’s Environmental Design program and placed first in Storefront Manitoba's Cool Gardens Competition in 2021.
Meanwhile, Nino joined our team in Rochester Hills in November -just under the 2021 wire. Holding a degree in landscape design, Nino assists the team with his Computer-Aided Drafting and graphic design skills.
Thank you for picking the Nadi Group to work at.
Congratulations Don!
The Manufactured Housing Institute [MHI] presented Don Westphal with the Lifetime Achievement Award at their Annual Meeting in Estancia La Jolla, California.
Don possesses over 50 years of planning and design experience in the manufactured housing industry. He even wrote his master’s thesis on the subject.
After designing his first manufactured home community for $45 in 1964, Don celebrated his accomplishment with a trip to the Lincoln Hotel for a prime rib dinner. A few years later, Don opened his Rochester, Michigan, a landscape architecture firm in 1969. He worked as a consultant for the Mobile Home Manufacturers Association to support his entrepreneurial goal of starting his practice by age 30.
Fifty years later, Don is a well-regarded leader in the manufactured home and RV resort/park and campground industries, developing a reputation for intelligent and holistic community design. When Emeka acquired Donald C. Westphal Associates, the firm inherited Don’s legacy and will continue upholding and building upon it.
The entire Nadi Group team is beyond proud of his work and contributions to these industries!
Articles, Articles, Articles
Our Inbound Marketing Campaign inspires the staff to expand their knowledge and expertise within their professions.
This year, we doubled down on the campaign, researching the challenges and issues that affected our clients the most. We covered renewable energy in the manufactured housing industry to maximize density in urban and suburban developments.
Below are the top ten articles that spoke to our readers in 2021:
- How to deliver an exceptional master-planned community
- Why your manufactured home community must prioritize renewable energy
- Do you know the difference between land-use planning and zoning?
- What does public space design for privately owned projects look like?
- With travel restrictions set to ease, do your RV park amenities have a competitive advantage?
- What are the many synergies between architecture and landscape architecture?
- How to master plan rural communities for improved quality of life
- Urban and Suburban density - maximizing your development's profitability
- What are landscape plans?
- What is a site plan?
SECO and ARVC
Since we acquired Donald C. Westphal Associates in 2019, we have continued to expand the Nadi Group name into the manufactured home community and RV parks and campgrounds industries.
This year, we finally had the opportunity to travel and participate in trade shows—while one of the trade shows was virtual. Nevertheless, whether we engaged in person or online, we made the most of our time chatting with people across North America.
SECO National Conference of Community Owners took place at the end of September through a platform that saw presentations, networking and booth management all in one place. Emeka and Don presented 10 Mistakes You Can Make When Developing a Manufactured Home Community on the second day to attendees.
Look, one of our employees won the leaderboard challenge by asking questions, answering message boards and networking with other attendees. She was immensely proud of this accomplishment!
In November, we headed to Raleigh, South Carolina to join our RV Parks and Campgrounds partner, Jayne Cohen, at the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds’ Outdoor Hospitality Conference and Expo (ARVC). Jayne is the principal for Campground Consulting Association, a firm that offers operational audits, market and feasibility studies and management, and operations, investing and development consultation.
As one of the first trade shows under the Nadi Group banner, it felt nice to build relationships in person again. Uchenna, who attended the conference, said the energy was great at ARVC.
Held at the Raleigh Convention Center, the conference covered land use consultation to market analysis and operational audits to book lodging apps for RV park users. It was a one-stop-shop of information on the RV resort, park and campground industry.
Uchenna, Emeka and Jayne worked hard during the day and played hard after the show, meeting new clients and hanging out with existing ones. It was a great meeting of minds.
Conclusion
Even though 2021 remained uncertain and strange, we regained our footing in the last half.
The wise Kelly Clarkson sang in 2011, "what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger". We feel like 2021 taught us that in a very visceral way, but the light has started to shine again. Twenty-twenty-two might feel like 2021, but it’s not! I swear. Twenty-twenty-two is a new year full of possibilities and opportunities.
Everyone at the Nadi Group would like to wish you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!
