The Scion Advisory Services Team Joins CannonDesign’s Growing Education and Student Life Consultancy | National

Dedicated to helping colleges and universities optimize their residential programs, the Scion Advisory Services team offers deep experience in housing planning, residential life administration, real estate finance, and program and asset management.

Providing services ranging from market studies to full housing master plans and P3 transactional support, Scion Advisory Services has collaborated with more than 300 North American campuses, solidifying its reputation as a leader in student living. The team’s expertise bolsters CannonDesign’s rapidly growing consulting practice, anchored by Blue Cottage of CannonDesign, with a broadened ability to drive strategic impact for education institutions at every scale.

“The Scion Advisory Services team has proven itself an agent for positive impact, helping higher education institutions shape meaningful student life outcomes for a quarter of a decade. They make our company stronger immediately,” said Juliet Rogers, Ph.D., MPH, MAPL, president of Blue Cottage of CannonDesign and Chief Strategy Officer of CannonDesign. “Scion Advisory Services equips us to offer higher education institutions end-to-end advisory services at a moment when they are facing numerous shifting forces and market changes.”

Among Scion Advisory Services’ current and past clients are some of the most dynamic education institutions in the United States, including the California State University System, the University of Arkansas, the University of Maine System, and the University of Nevada Las Vegas. The team has also delivered work for over 50 Canadian colleges and universities, including the University of Ottawa and University of Calgary.

Beyond Scion Advisory Services’ deep student life portfolio, the group also has extensive experience in structuring and guiding successful public-private partnerships (P3s). As more institutions turn to P3s to deliver successful projects, Scion Advisory Services’ expertise in financial structuring, risk allocation and stakeholder alignment is paramount.

“Our advisory practice has been at the center of our business identity for our entire 26-year history,” said Robert Bronstein, CEO of The Scion Group. “It is important to us that this group be able to offer our decades of expertise to the higher education sector as part of an equally highly regarded team going forward. Having worked extensively with CannonDesign in the past, we are confident this evolution is an ideal way to continue that legacy as part of a growing consultancy offering.”

CannonDesign and Scion Advisory Services previously partnered on housing and residence life planning projects at the University of Rochester, University of Rhode Island, the University of Massachusetts and Florida State University. The two groups’ history of successful collaboration demonstrates that the addition of Scion Advisory Services will be a strong complement to CannonDesign’s existing design and consulting services.

“Scion Advisory Services is a highly regarded partner across the education ecosystem, already delivering visionary work on campuses of every type,” remarked Brad Lukanic, AIA, LEED AP, CEO of CannonDesign. “This move represents our shared commitment to helping our clients reach new heights and set new precedents in education design and strategy.”

Scion Advisory Services will operate under its current name for an interim period before fully integrating into CannonDesign’s education consulting practice within Blue Cottage of CannonDesign, working in close partnership with the firm’s higher education planning and design teams.

The addition of Scion Advisory Services is the latest in a series of strategic moves advancing CannonDesign’s evolution as a design firm capable of helping clients solve challenges of nearly any type across the built environment and beyond. Other recent acquisitions include Jenkins•Peer Architects, a Charlotte-based design firm; Christner Architects, a St. Louis-based design firm; Yellow Brick Consulting, a leader in healthcare transition and activation; and The Clarient Group, experts in smart-building consulting.