Robert Hanselman, AIA

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If you are considering hiring an Architect, I would highly advise you to NOT hire this person. I have spent $2940.00 on drawings which are totally useless. His designs for my garage were so complicated and expensive that some contractors wouldn’t even bother to prepare a bid on his design. I also recommend that you look him up in the court records in Alachua County Florida at alachuaclerk.org He has had similar complaints in the past which have been resolved with legal action. In fact, before hiring anyone, you should look them up in public records.



From the beginning, he knew my budget of around $100K to a maximum of $150K. He claimed on the first meeting that he thought what I was asking for would be well below the $100K. When the initial bids came back, it was around $255K, which didn’t include fit up and site prep. Overall cost would be triple my budget. He said he had a contractor friend that would provide the “costing” for us to verify the estimated cost.



What made matters worse, Mr. Hanselman highly recommended LOGIX ICF based on my needs. Although this is a good product, he failed to disclose that he ONLY designs with this product for the last eight years.



After I paid for the first design, I needed to cut the cost down by 2/3. I received no help from him and came up with my own cutbacks. I asked him not to update the drawing until we had a design that I could afford. He insisted that I MUST (pay him to) update the drawings to get the updated costing (from his friend). After paying him more money, I found that not to be true. Other contractors gave me bids based on my updates and his friend even told me later that I didn’t need the architect’s involvement to make changes in the bid.



After paying for the drawing updates, his friend provided me a bid for $147K which happened to be right under my upper limit. Then Mr. Hanselman immediately asked me (since the bid with within my budget) if he can continue to do more drawings. Thank goodness I said hold off. I then questioned the bid from his friend and noticed that some items were much lower than other bids. It ends up that he was going to use a product other than what Mr. Hanselman was affiliated with, so the bid was updated and of course it was over budget.



I picked a different contractor and worked on a design which was affordable. I asked Mr. Hanselman how much it would cost to complete the required drawings and he wanted an additional $1500 for some of the drawings, plus reimbursable. He also said I would need more (that he didn’t price out for me).



I fired Mr. Hanselman and found another architect which would do the complete drawing packages with any changes needed for a flat price just over $1000.00



Again, if you need an architect, I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND Mr. Hanselman. In fact, I would keep my check book closed and run away fast. Unfortunately for me, I paid him $2940 before I fired him. I also wasted three months dealing with him. I feel that he really took advantage of me for his financial benefit.