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Law Firm Moving to Orange’s City Plaza

Orange? City Plaza tower, one of Central County? more prominent office buildings, has landed its most notable tenant since changing owners late last year.

Law firm Brady, Vorwerck, Ryder & Caspino, which counts about 25 local lawyers, inked an 18,320-square-foot lease for the 18-story tower.

The lease is for 10 years in City Plaza, which is owned by Los Angeles-based Hudson Capital LLC.

The law firm will be taking space on the next-to-top floor of the building, which fronts the Garden Grove (22) Freeway, next to the Block at Orange.

It? the first big lease that Hudson Capital LLC, a real estate investor formed in 2007 by former executives with Arden Realty Inc., has announced for the property since acquiring it late last year from Los Angeles-based Maguire Properties Inc.

Brady, Vorwerck, which ranked No. 36 in the Business Journal? January list of the largest Orange County law firms, will be moving by September, according to Randall Parker, managing director for the Newport Beach office of Los Angeles-based brokerage Travers Realty Corp.

Irvine-based Shlemmer Algaze Associates is handling the design and architecture for the law firm? office.

Brady, Vorwerck had been based nearby at the Orange City Square office complex.

The firm? partners checked out a number of local buildings but came away impressed with Hudson Capital and its plans for improving the building, said Michael Caspino, a partner in the firm since its inception in 1996.

?e told them ?ou have to be our partner, not just our landlord,? Caspino said.

?udson did a fantastic job of capturing this tenant and understanding its business plans,?said Parker, who along with Travers?Matt Wiley, represented the law firm in the lease.

In addition to its local business, the law firm handles a lot of litigation for clients in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, making a central location in OC a requirement, Caspino said.

The move will allow for some growth for the law firm, which also has offices in Northern California, Denver, Las Vegas and Scottsdale.

Lately, Brady, Vorwerck has been picking up work defending companies from asbestos-related charges, Caspino said. It? been looking to hire more lawyers to handle the additional business.


Lease Terms

Terms for the lease weren? disclosed. The building? being marketed at monthly lease rates of about $2.10 per square foot. That? a far cry from the nearly $3 per square foot rents Maguire had been pushing for the building a few years ago.

Defunct subprime lender Ameriquest Mortgage Co. had leased much of the space in the building until mid-2007, around the time Maguire bought the property as part of its $2.9 billion acquisition of local buildings formerly owned by Equity Office Properties Trust Inc.

Hudson Capital took over the tower last September. It? the first OC acquisition for the company, which was founded in 2007 by Victor Coleman, the former head of office landlord Arden.

The real estate investor reportedly paid less than $55 million to acquire City Plaza, which Maguire had paid more than $100 million for in early 2007.

At the time of the sale, the 327,000-square-foot City Plaza tower was about 45% full, the lowest of any Maguire building in Central County.

Hudson now has boosted occupancy to about 60%, according to CoStar Group Inc.

Brady, Vorwerck? lease runs counter to the general trend of local law firms gravitating toward Irvine, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach as their local headquarters.

Only two of the largest 30 law firms in OC, ranked by number of lawyers, currently count local addresses outside of Newport Beach or the area around John Wayne Airport, according to the Business Journal? most recent list.

The largest law firm currently not in those areas is Walsworth, Franklin, Bevins & McCall LLP. The Orange-based firm counts about 59 local attorneys, putting it at No. 11 on the Business Journal? list.

Five years ago, six of the largest 30 firms on the Business Journal? list were outside Irvine, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach.

Among smaller law firms, there? currently a greater variety in OC locations. Among the list? largest 50 law firms, 10 are in areas outside Newport Beach or the airport area, including six firms in Santa Ana.

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Mark Mueller
Mark Mueller
Mark is the Editor-in-Chief of the Orange County Business Journal, one of the premier regional business newspapers in the country. He’s the fifth person to hold the editor’s position in the paper’s long history. He oversees a staff of about 15 people. The OCBJ is considered a must-read for area business executives. The print edition of the paper is the primary source of local news for most of the Business Journal’s subscribers, which includes most of OC’s major corporate and community players. Mark’s been with the paper since 2005, and long served as the real estate reporter for the paper, breaking hundreds of commercial and residential real estate stories. He took on the editor’s position in 2018.
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