Perkins Coie’s just lately renewed lease of its Portland workplace displays the agency’s elevated concentrate on coworking and hybrid workspaces and a want to place attorneys in any respect ranges on an equal taking part in subject with uniform workplaces.
Perkins’ Portland managing accomplice Christopher Wealthy advised The Recorder the agency opted for a smaller footprint in renewing its lease, prioritizing facilities and versatile workspaces over massive accomplice workplaces. Gone are the times of the big nook workplace for companions at Perkins, Wealthy mentioned.
Wealthy mentioned Perkins’ Portland workplace has over 130 workers and 52 legal professionals, and has been in its location in Portland’s Pearl District since 2003. The renewed lease is a 12-year time period, Wealthy mentioned, and entails the agency shrinking from 4 flooring to 2.
“We need to create a extra vibrant collaborative workspace” in redesigning the Portland workplace, Wealthy mentioned. This contains redeveloping the agency’s upstairs tenth flooring and including a restaurant with seating, constructing out a patio and deck lounge space and placing glass fronts on inside and exterior workplaces to higher present who’s within the workplace, Wealthy added.
A big focus within the Portland renovation for Perkins has been versatile options, reflecting the bigger shift of regulation corporations in the direction of extra collaborative, multi-use areas, together with convention rooms that may double as areas to host occasions or shopper conferences.
Hoteling is extra of a function on this workplace post-renovation, which Wealthy mentioned was a part of the agency’s bid to be versatile and permit attorneys to order workplace house as wanted, slightly than sustaining a bigger footprint of unused workplace house. The agency will make the most of an app that tracks which workplaces can be found for day work or shopper conferences.
“About half of the house in our constructing goes to be customer workplaces,” Wealthy mentioned, including that particularly post-coronavirus pandemic, “We have now seen that notably plenty of our junior attorneys acquired used to working in a type of the espresso store mannequin, [and] we’ll present those self same sorts of environments within the workplace. … We predict that is going to satisfy individuals the place they’re on this world of hybrid work we’re in proper now.”
After COVID restrictions eased, “we pivoted in an enormous approach, however we additionally realized that individuals do not need to return to the outdated mannequin,” Wealthy mentioned. “Folks like having the pliability of having the ability to select the place and after they work a number of days per week. … And we have been looking for the best steadiness [with] a really gradual, and open-minded strategy,” Wealthy mentioned, including that discussions with each stage of lawyer at Perkins’ Portland workplace about their working preferences aren’t unusual.
Perkins asks its attorneys in any respect ranges to work not less than two days per week in particular person, Wealthy mentioned. About half of those attorneys have uniform assigned workplaces, whereas the rest are anticipated to make use of reservable ones. Those that hire out an workplace will nonetheless obtain ergonomic workstations, entry to “the great WiFi,” as Wealthy put it, plus entry to Perkins’ administrative services or IT assist.
“The unscripted house typically offers alternatives for mentoring, each for extra junior and senior companions, alternatives [go] each methods and we did not need to make the workplace coming into the workplace inconsistent with type of the place persons are proper now,” Wealthy mentioned. “In plenty of methods, we’re type of reimagining what the workplace of the longer term must appear like.”
Downtown Portland has been affected by excessive industrial actual property emptiness charges. Information from actual property agency CBRE discovered that Portland is predicted to construct solely 2.4 million sq. ft of latest building all through this 12 months. And a March 2024 report by actual property agency Colliers reported Portland’s central enterprise district–the place Perkins’ workplace is situated–noticed emptiness charges of 30.2% by the tip of 2023, marking a 3.6% rise in vacancies 12 months over 12 months.
“When it comes to industrial actual property, [Portland] has been referred to as out as one of many highest emptiness charges and the best sublease charges in main industrial downtown markets within the final a number of years,” Wealthy mentioned. “We’re completely proud to be recommitting for an additional decade to downtown Portland,” he mentioned, including that the agency “truly by no means thought of leaving the central downtown district.”
