By Natalie Kostelni – Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal
Blank Rome, one of Philadelphia’s largest law firms, has signed a new 16-year lease on space in the Center City building where it currently resides — One Logan Square.
What makes the deal unusual and unprecedented, at least in the Philadelphia market, is how much space the law firm will take hasn’t been determined. “I don’t know,” said Grant S. Palmer, CEO and managing partner at Blank Rome when asked how many square feet the firm will occupy under the new lease.
Palmer isn’t being cagy. Blank Rome currently occupies 196,000 square feet at One Logan and its new lease with Brandywine Realty Trust provides an option for it to contract its space when the new lease takes effect and continue to do so going forward. Most leases are typically negotiated to include options to expand a tenant’s space over time but not this one.
“We can give back space at the beginning of the lease. We know we are going to do that but we don’t have numbers,” Palmer said. “We already have more space than we need.”
There is an undisclosed range of space the firm has committed to but it’s a fraction of what it is currently occupying.
This year has largely been defined by companies large and small delaying long-term decisions on office leases. The pandemic upended how businesses view and use office space, prompting them to wait and see how to approach their use in the future. Two other Philadelphia law firms, Dechert and Baker Hostettler, are still in the market looking for office space.
For Brandywine, One Logan’s landlord, the lease with Blank Rome helps to stabilize the office building. A representative from Brandywine couldn’t be reached for comment.
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