“I had the same desk for 11 years, but in the last four of those years I had the names of four different companies and their logos on my business cards,” said Whit Blanton, vice president and founding principal of Renaissance Planning Group. When the corporate mergers, spin-offs and re-organizations finally conspired to marginalize planning in the market world-view of the mega-corporation, it became time for a change. It was July 1999, and the four founding members of Renaissance – Chris Sinclair, Whit Blanton, Glen Duke and Kevin Tilbury – decided to create a different kind of planning firm dedicated to integrated land use-transportation solutions. The idea was to blend their diverse talents to develop tools and innovative approaches that help communities explore more sustainable and livable development patterns, evaluate trade-offs and define a long term strategy to achieve their vision. Thus, Renaissance Planning Group was born in Orlando, Florida, at the dawn of a new millennium.

It was not an auspicious debut. The corporate world responded harshly, and the four quickly found themselves out of work and left to figure out the details of how to proceed. In a matter of weeks, they had lined up a few contracts to continue working with several long-standing public agency clients. The Birmingham Regional Planning Council hired three of the founders as temporary staff to complete a Strategic Regional Multimodal Mobility Plan in its final phase. The four spent their days discussing ideas and (the lack of) money around Chris’ kitchen table, each probably annoying and worrying their spouses in equal measure.

They decided on a name that conveyed rebirth, renewal and a blending of various disciplines to forge a new intellectual theory. The logo – a Celtic knot representing interconnectedness, the intricacy of cities and their organic development – came soon afterwards.

Money is always tight when starting a new company, but from various sources the four began to cobble together funds for a functioning business. Before securing office space, the first purchase was a fax machine. And not long after they plugged it in, an intriguing fax from the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission in Charlottesville, VA curled out onto the kitchen tile floor. It heralded the Eastern Planning Initiative, a collaborative land use-transportation scenario planning project funded by a Transportation and Community and System Preservation (TCSP) pilot program grant from the Federal Highway Administration. The first Renaissance proposal led to a contract, and the success of that landmark project eventually led to the opening of an office in Charlottesville and the hiring of the Eastern Planning Initiative’s project manager, Hannah Twaddell. Other early signature projects – the Gainesville Livable Community Reinvestment Plan, the Treasure Coast Regional Land Use Study, the Sarasota/Manatee Public Transportation System Analysis, a charrette in Lewes, DE and the Destin Multimodal Transportation District – each contributed to the firm’s reputation for technical innovation, creativity and consensus-building.

By 2003, the firm had grown to 15 people in two offices, adding the talents of several experienced urban design and planning professionals, and moved into a new office in downtown Orlando. In 2004, a third office in Tampa opened. For a short time, Renaissance had a Denver office after one of its first employees moved there for personal reasons. By 2007, Renaissance expanded to a larger headquarters in the new Plaza building in downtown Orlando, and each of the three offices moved into new space and grown to roughly a dozen staff. In early 2008, the company continued to expand, with more than 35 full-time staff and new offices in Tallahassee and Delray Beach, Florida.

After almost one decade in business, Renaissance continues to focus on a culture of innovation and collaboration. It has expanded ownership to a wider group of professionals in the firm, and broadened its integrated planning and design skill set into areas such as traffic engineering, landscape architecture and graphic communications. The decade that follows offers the promise of further exploration to challenge assumptions and help communities understand the issues necessary to make difficult, yet informed choices about their future. If the last decade is any indication, it will be a heck of a ride.