source: bizjournals.com
Adams and Reese LLP is planning a substantial renovation in upcoming months to its new office space in downtown Birmingham’s Regions Harbert Plaza.
The New Orleans-based law firm, which is the 22nd largest in Birmingham, will relocate its local office Oct. 1 to the 32-story multitenant office tower at 1901 6th Ave. North from the Concord Center, where they were for a decade.
Adams and Reese has signed a 10-year lease to occupy 22,045 square feet of space on the 29th and 30th floors of the building, which is located in the heart of the city’s central business district.
David Bowsher, partner in charge of the Birmingham office of Adams and Reese, said the firm has hired Gensler, a global design and consulting business based in San Francisco, for the architectural work and Birmingham’s Golden & Associates Construction LLC as the general contractor.
He would not disclose the renovation amount and record of a building permit with the city of Birmingham wasn’t filed as of July 25.
Bowsher said the public areas on the two floors will get a complete makeover and will include the addition of flexible meeting space with the latest audiovisual technology and communications.
“We’re deliberately designing everything not only for how we work with our clients today, but also how we’ll work with them over the course of the 10 years we’ll be there,” he said.
Even though the firm plans to start moving into the Regions Harbert Plaza office at the end of September, Bowsher said construction on the public areas won’t be completed until about late November.
Bowsher said there won’t be many alterations made to the offices on the 30th floor because it was originally designed for another law firm. Johnston Barton Proctor & Rose LLP moved out of the space in 2006, and it was leased by Regions Bank, beginning in 2007, without many modifications. Adams and Reese will sublease the space from the bank.
Other major tenants in the building are Maynard Cooper & Gale PC, The Summit Club and Ernst & Young.
Sam Carroll and Walter Brown, both with Graham & Co. LLC, represented Adams and Reese in the transaction. Sim A. Wilson III, first vice president with CBRE Group Inc., represented Regions Bank and Dean Nix with Harbert Realty Services represented Regions Harbert Plaza.
Nix said Regions Harbert Plaza, Birmingham’s largest multitenant office building, is a prime location with 98.5 percent leased.
The class A building has nearly 570,000 leasable square feet and an average asking lease rate of $24.50 per square foot.
Nix said Harbert Realty Services is seeing good activity in the downtown office market.
“I know we’ve recently offered at least six or seven proposals in the past six weeks in our three buildings downtown,” he said. “There’s been a few things moving around, and that’s always good.”
Adams and Reese has been in its current office on Third Avenue since it entered the Birmingham market in 2003.
The firm has 13 offices in 12 markets throughout the Southern U.S. and Washington, D.C.
Bowsher said the firm’s new lease highlights its commitment to the Birmingham market.
“We’ve been at the Concord Center for almost 10 years, so when we were presented with the opportunity to move into new space – particularly the 29th and 30th floors of the Regions Harbert Plaza, just below the Summit Club – we were delighted to be able to work out a deal to do so,” he said. “We are optimistic about our continued success and growth in the Birmingham market.”
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