For over three decades, optima has been developing, designing and building some of the most striking urban and suburban luxury residential communities in Chicago and Phoenix. The company's founder, award-winning architect David C. Hovey FAIA, believes the best way to achieve "total quality control" is to direct and manage every phase of the development, design and construction processes.

Complete Capabilities under One Roof

Optima carefully considers, manages and controls the thousands of details that go into creating a distinctive quality home . . . that is what makes an optima home something you will value from the day you move in. With a focus on creating powerful cost efficiencies that enable us to be more responsive to the marketplace and the discerning personal tastes of our homeowners, optima handles all aspects of development, design and construction in-house. We are proud to call over 100 professionals — AIA and LEED-certified architects, expert construction managers, sophisticated real estate brokers, experienced accountants and financial analysts — part of the optima family. They all contribute to delivering an unparalleled spectrum of services and communities.

Commitment to Design and Environmental Excellence

While each optima project is very distinctive and customized to its physical location, there are shared aesthetics that have become hallmarks of our architectural vision: strong geometric shapes, simple details reflecting the inherent beauty of quality building materials, large expanses of glass, and open, flexible floor plans. Even the way each building sits on its site is carefully considered to optimize the building's beauty and functionality. We are committed to promoting advances in sustainable building design and construction - green building - by integrating innovative selections, finishes and solutions into the master planning and creative development, including LEED, BIM and Virtual Building Technologies. The result makes optima elite. . . and our homes state-of-the-art: environmentally, aesthetically and structurally.

We invite you to visit one of our properties and see why optima is the nationally-recognized recipient of over 30 prestigious Awards, distinguishing us at the vanguard of development and design. Our remarkable growth will continue to be earmarked by offering beautiful homes and living spaces priced to deliver tremendous value and satisfaction.

David Hovey founded Optima in 1978. The company's name summarizes Hovey's ambitions then and his achievements now. Hovey wanted to reinvent residential housing by optimizing development, design and construction. Even more, Hovey wanted to raise the design standard by building architecturally ambitious housing designed to accommodate modern people with their contemporary needs.

To date, Optima has completed 29 multi-family projects — more than 4,000 units — built in the areas around Chicago, Illinois and Phoenix, Arizona. The scale has risen dramatically over 30 years: from the company's first project of six units — townhomes in Chicago — to more than 650 units in three towers at its most recent project, Optima Old Orchard Woods in suburban Chicago. In addition, Hovey has done a series of four experimental single-family homes in a gated community called Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona. The company has received dozens of awards for everything from architectural excellence, to planning and green design.

Hovey is uniquely suited by disposition and training to synthesize design and building. He is a trained architect who worked for years on large-scale projects at the firm now known as Murphy/Jahn in Chicago. His graduate thesis explored the possibilities of factory-built housing. Control is important to him. By managing all aspects of a project from financing through design and construction, he is able to express and realize his vision. Hovey often says "Quality pays for itself." Time and again the economic success of his buildings has proved the truth of that maxim.

Hovey believes in continually refining housing through design innovation and using new technology. He was early to incorporate green thinking and sustainability into his work. Since the 1980s, his projects have featured green- roof sky-gardens that help the environment and reduce energy consumption. Solar power has been routinely employed in recent projects. Optima Camelview Village in Arizona has been designed to meet the LEEDS Silver-level energy efficiency standards. By building dense, multi-family housing in cities and near transit hubs at close-in suburbs, Hovey offers attractive efficient alternatives to the wasteful excesses of sprawl.

Hovey's designs are always site-specific and sensitive to climate and lifestyle. Yet, despite enormous climate differences between the two landscapes where he builds — Illinois and Arizona — certain modern features recur throughout his work: strong geometric shapes, large glass expanses, open floor plans and details that celebrate the inherent beauty of building materials.

The company's process is streamlined and controlled. A concentrated, multi-disciplinary structure eliminates the inefficiencies and redundancies that plague conventional developers. Optima is staffed by engineers, construction managers, accountants and architects. Among the last group are past students of Hovey's from the architecture program at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago where he is both an associate professor and alumnus.

Hovey is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). His work has been widely published and exhibited. A book on his work, The Architecture of David Hovey, was published by Rizzoli in 2004.