— EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE —

A LIFETIME OF LEARNING, COMMITMENT TO EDUCATION DESIGN

Cindy and Mike Dingeldein co-founded Community Design Alliance (CDA) in 2012, after retiring as Principal Partners and Vice Presidents from SHP, where they spent a 28-year career focused primarily on educational K-12 facilities. CDA was founded with the goal of continuing a legacy of community-based architecture, design and planning in our hometown of Hamilton, where SHP was founded over 100 years ago. CDA offers architectural and interior design solutions through partnerships of public and private entities in order to leverage creative and cost effective solutions. CDA is an Ohio EDGE certified firm (HUB Zone) and our office is LEED Silver certified.
Cindy and Mike each bring over 32 years of experience with design and project management responsibilities for a variety of public and private sector work. Over their respective careers they have been involved in over 1 billion dollars in projects, with a primary focus on K-12 educational facilities. During their time at SHP, they enjoyed a long partnership with Hamilton City School District, as well as numerous other districts and OFCC. As part of the amicable separation from SHP, there was a 3-year non-compete clause related to educational clients. However, during that 3-year time period, at the client’s request, Mike continued in his role as Principal in Charge of the South-Western City Schools $208.5M building program, and Cindy continued under contract to complete work with the Hamilton City School District. The SHP education market “non-compete” ended in December of 2015 and CDA is now positioned to bring their expertise to the school market as Community Design Alliance. We believe the small firm model and our skillset brings value and a wealth of experience to the districts we work with today.
Community Design Alliance forms alliances from which we build teams for successful projects.   Our strong partner in the K-12 Education sector is Schorr Architects and together we form a comprehensive full-service firm with extensive expertise.  Mike and Cindy focus on Masterplanning, Programing, Schematic Design, Interior Design, Furniture Specification and Project Management of our school projects.  Mike is an expert in OFCC Design Manual guidelines and designed one of the first schools to be built under this program in 1997.  His experience ranges from small renovation to major new buildings including organization and management of large-scale programs involving multiple buildings and phases of work.  Projects during his career have included a full breadth of early childhood centers, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, career tech schools, transportation facilities and administration and board offices.  Mike’s expertise in Career Technical schools led to his involvement as the lead architect in the development of the Career Technical School Standards for the State of Ohio.  Cindy founded the Interior Design Department at SHP in 1984 and managed a staff of interior designers over the entire SHP enterprise.  Her work includes a wide variety of educational projects and the selection, specification and installation of multi millions of dollars of educations furniture in her career.  Cindy builds a personal relationship with each district and based on that foundation of trust, creates beautiful and functional schools filled with furniture that meets the specific need of the educational market.
Under Mike’s leadership, the CDA team can provide a full scope of architectural and design services. We have developed successful long-term relationships with many educational clients over the years and believe that the trust and partnerships that we value have enhanced the planning and design process for the many school districts we have worked with over our long careers. Leading a team through the steps of pre-bond issue work, prioritizing goals, establishing budgets and designing cost-effective solutions, as well as coordinating the construction process to implement the shared vision, requires the communication skills that we possess from our years working in the specialty of educational design. We are comfortable working on small and large projects, renovations or new design and the construction methods for each.

CDA has partnered with Schorr Architects on the new Bloom Carroll Elementary School.

“I worked closely with the them [Mike and Cindy] on developing and implementing a Master Facilities Plan for the Hamilton City School District. They have a unique understanding of the ever-evolving educational delivery systems and the impact facilities can have on teaching and learning.”
– Janet Baker, Executive Coach for the Butler County Educational Service Center (former superintendent at Hamilton City Schools)