Gaines Group Architects is very excited to be moving back to downtown Charlottesville! The firm has long roots in the downtown area. Ray started his career across the street from our new office while doing his professional externship with Sandy H. Lambert, III during his education at VA Tech. He then worked just off of the downtown mall during his time with Tom Wyant.
The first official Gaines Group office (then known as Raymond E. Gaines, Architect) was started off of West Main Street from 1989-1993. As the group expanded, they moved to East Market Street into a building that we designed – a place where current partners, Charles, Paul, and Adrienne started their careers with the firm. In 2011, the opportunity to move into a roof terrace space at Luxor office park (which the Gaines Group designed) was too good to pass up. The firm has been located on Pantops ever since.

Recently, we realized our space there didn’t match our current needs, so we decided to explore places closer to where we began. The opportunity arose to share some office space with a local civil engineering firm, Shimp Engineering, and his survey team, Foresight. We’ve worked closely with Justin’s team on many of our previous projects. This move puts us within walking distance of the downtown mall, and we’ve all been excited to explore the surrounding area as we move in.



