Law firm to boost downtown growth
Wednesday, Apr 11, 2007 - 11:14
Turner, Padget, Graham & Laney, P.A., will be the anchor tenant in a new downtown Florence business center scheduled to open in 2008, the law firm announced Wednesday.
“We’re going to be one of the cornerstones” of downtown redevelopment, said Florence attorney Rene Josey, a shareholder in the firm.
The new office building is the private development catalyst that will serve as the “first step in a tremendous growth spurt” for downtown, Florence Mayor Frank Willis said.
“It will jump-start the growth in the downtown area, so we are really looking forward to this,” Willis said.
The new building, on the northwest corner of Cheves and Dargan streets, will serve as a mixed-use office space across from the future site of the Francis Marion University Center for the Performing Arts.
“Just having a building there (on the empty lot) is going to make a big visual difference” for downtown, Willis said.
Preliminary plans show Turner Padget, as the law firm commonly is called, could occupy about half of the building’s proposed 60,000 square feet, said Florence attorney Michael Roberts, a shareholder in the firm.
“What’s driving (the relocation) is we’ve just outgrown our space,” he said.
Turner Padget operates on the fourth floor, as well as parts of the second and third floors, of the BB&T building at 1831 W. Evans St.
The firm will move 24 attorneys and 30 staff members to the new location.
The firm considered relocation options all over the city, but “we made the conscious decision to go downtown if we could,” Josey said.
The building, which will tentatively stand three to four stories tall, will feature its mixed-use office spaces on the ground level, Josey and Roberts said.
Developer Caine Halter of Coldwell Banker Commercial Caine and Joe Pazdan of Pazdan-Smith Group Architects, both of Greenville, have formed Florence Downtown Investors LLC to own and manage the building.
Florence City Council voted unanimously during its March meeting to sell the acre for the building.
The city had been talking with Florence Downtown Investors since February 2006, when the council approved first reading of an ordinance to sell the land.
The land for sale originally encompassed two parcels on 2.1 acres but now is one parcel.
Halter’s firm has played a major role in downtown Greenville revitalization, according to a press release from Turner Padget. Pazdan-Smith has worked on revitalization projects in Greenville’s historic West End and also has completed an upfit of Turner Padget’s Greenville office.
The Florence project is in a due diligence period, and preliminary planning and the search for other tenants continues.
Josey and Roberts said those at the firm are proud to be “pioneers” and hope other businesses will follow them downtown.
Turner Padget has 90 attorneys and 225 support staff members working in offices in Charleston, Columbia, Florence, Greenville and Myrtle Beach. The firm has served clients for more than 75 years, according to a press release from the firm.
Charles Tomlinson
Reporter, Morning News
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