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The Triad’s architecture firms are tired of losing promising young candidates to other cities with accredited architecture schools, so they’re hoping for a school in the Triad.

Through the years, Ken Mayer has seen good interns from his firm go to Raleigh, Charlotte or beyond for graduate degrees  — and never come back to Greensboro.

An architecture school here, affiliated with a local university or with one of the architecture schools at UNC-Charlotte or N.C. State, could offer those higher degrees.

“Then, they’re not taking off to the wild blue yonder,” said Mayer, principal with Moser Mayer Phoenix Associates.

And that helps business, he said.

“Where you have an architecture school you also have an architectural culture in a way.

“You have more architects engaged and you have more firms.”

With assistance from the Piedmont Triad Partnership, the regional economic development group, local architects and universities have been meeting since

May to discuss this region’s needs.

Next week, two nationally recognized consultants will conduct focus groups here.

The consulting team will be led by Sharon Mathews, former director of the National Architect’s Accrediting Board and by Rodner Wright, dean of the Florida A&M University School of Architecture.

They will conduct interviews across the state and report to the partnership’s study group, which includes representatives from UNCG, N.C. A&T, UNC-Charlotte, N.C. State and Elon University.

Greensboro leaders see professional-level education as another way of enhancing business and cultural opportunities for the region.

They have already successfully recruited the Elon law school to downtown Greensboro.

A possible school of pharmacy is in the works for UNCG.

An architecture school would not have the research impact of a pharmacy school or the economic impact of a law school, Mayer said. But it would be a push toward building the affluent “creative class” that the city has been seeking since author Richard Florida came to Greensboro several years ago to outline the benefits of having creative, educated workers and business people in a community.

“If you think back a few years, there was an effort to grow a creative class here in Greensboro,” Mayer said. “This fits right into that effort that Winston(-Salem) is on top of and Greensboro is trying to pursue. So, you try to group these things together and you can really begin to have some significant impact.”

The study process will cost about $34,000 and come from a federal grant, said Margaret Collins, the partnership’s director of Creative Enterprises and the Arts.

The group wants to expand, not duplicate, architecture programs in the rest of the state, Mayer said.

“We have very good architectural education in North Carolina and whatever we do,” he said, “we don’t want to dilute that.”

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com