Schwabe Finds Best Deal Under Foot, Stays Put at Pacwest

PORTLAND-Despite being heavily courted by the developers of several proposed new Downtown office buildings, Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt has renewed its office lease at Pacwest Center, a 16-year-old class A building on the transit mall and near the courthouse. The 12-year, 84,000-sf agreement is valued at about $27 million.

Schwabe is one of the three largest law firms in Portland. Late last year, Miller Nash, another of the top three, made a similar decision, opting to renew its 70,000-sf lease at the Unico-U.S. Bancorp Tower rather than kick-start a new development. The next biggest law firm set to make the new-or-renew decision is Davis Wright Tremaine, which recently started shopping for 75,000 to 80,000 square feet of space. The firm’s lease at 1300 SW Fifth Ave. expires in 2005.

Schwabe occupies space on floors 16-19 of the 30-story office building, and the new lease includes space on the 23rd floor. Local real estate sources familiar with the Schwabe deal say the law firm average triple-net lease rate over the life of the lease agreement works out to about $27 per sf per year, which would put the starting lease rate at around $22 per sf and the ending rate at around $32 per sf, assuming annual 3% bumps.