Perkins Coie to move offices from midtown to smaller Camelback Corridor space
Global law firm Perkins Coie is bolstering its local office footprint.
Perkins Coie recently inked a 30,000-square-foot lease at Building II at the Esplanade campus in Phoenix’s Camelback Corridor at 2525 E. Camelback Road. The firm will be moving from its midtown office at Phoenix Plaza at 2901 N. Central Ave., downsizing from about 87,000 square feet.
“It has premier status,” said Todd Kerr, office managing partner of Perkins Coie of the Esplanade. “We view ourselves as a premier law firm and to be in a premier neighborhood, I think, was important. … The Esplanade itself has committed to adding $45 million of new amenities right in the complex itself. That was a big factor.”
The Seattle-headquartered firm also considered downtown and staying within midtown. The Camelback Corridor and particularly the Esplanade, however, was the best fit for commute times for employees, proximity to clients and walkable amenities.
“What we’ve learned through the pandemic is our attorneys and business professionals are highly productive in a remote environment but there still is a need for in-person training, firm building and especially opportunities to meet face-to-face with clients,” Kerr said. “A major focus of this new office and design is just that collaboration, teamwork and bringing people together.”
Perkins Coie has about 60 attorneys working out of its Phoenix office.
Upon moving in, Perkins Coie will join other professional services at the Esplanade such as CBRE Group Inc., Merrill Lynch, Cushman & Wakefield, UBS Financial and Gallagher & Kennedy.
Preparations for the new office
Perkins Coie is in the process of designing its new space and will look to start tenant improvements in late summer or early fall. It will likely move in by next spring. Firmwide, Perkins Coie works with Stantec for architecture and design services. Perkins Coie is still deciding on a general contractor for the project.
Perkins Coie worked with Cushman & Wakefield’s Scott Goldman and Larry Downey to find its new office. Bryan Taute, Corey Hawley and Spencer Nast of CBRE are listing brokers for Esplanade II.
“We’re thrilled to welcome the Perkins Coie team to the Esplanade,” Taute said in a statement. “The leasing momentum at the Esplanade continues to accelerate as tenants seek environments that are built to enhance employees’ work lives through amenitization.”
Part of that leasing momentum comes from an ongoing renovation at the Esplanade. In November 2022, new property owners Monarch Alternative Capital and Tourmaline Capital Partners announced they’d embark on a $45 million renovation to add more amenities to the campus. The heart of the project is the renovation of an existing one-story building into a new 16,000-square-foot two-story amenity building.
The bottom floor will be home to a bar and cafe, an employee lounge and game areas with pool tables and golf simulators. The second floor will be dedicated to wellness, which includes a gym, studio spaces, recovery rooms, saunas, mothers’ rooms and meditation spaces.
Other amenities will include a new 8,000-square-foot conference center, which is a venue that will be able to accommodate events for up to 100 people, that will be added to the building just to the east of the amenity facility. The conference center will include a variety of meeting rooms and coworking spaces outfitted with media equipment tailored to producing podcasts, livestream studios and more.
At $35.62, the Camelback/Piestewa Peak office submarket commanded the second-highest asking rate per square foot out of any Valley submarket during Q4 2022, according to a market report from CBRE. Only Tempe had a higher asking rate at $37.78 per square foot.