Elderkin & Pirnie plans move to Town Centre

A major Cedar Rapids law firm has leased the largest amount of unrestored space in the Town Centre building, which was damaged in the 2008 Cedar River floods.

Elderkin & Pirnie PLC plans to move in mid to late July from its present location at 115 First Ave. SE to a 13,500-square-foot ground floor space in the Town Centre building, managing partner Dan Childers said. The space housed Clancy's Ltd. menswear store before it closed in 2005.

The lease leaves only about 8,000 square feet of leasable space remaining, Town Centre owner Steve Emerson said.

Nearly 100 years old, Elderkin & Pirnie PLC employs about 30, including 16 attorneys.

One of the main motivations for the move was easier access to parking, Childers said. The Town Centre building has an attached parking garage.

Moving out of downtown was not an option, even though the ground floor space is arguably more vulnerable to flooding than the second-floor space that Elderkin & Pirnie had to vacate for four months after the flood.

"We're a firm believer that if we're lawyers in Cedar Rapids, we should be downtown and supporting that part of the economy," Childers said. He said the firm doesn't consider the likelihood of a repeat flood to be high, and has a strategy for protecting its client files and information if a flood occurs.

Because the space was gutted after the flood, Childers said the law firm will have the ability to work with building owner Steve Emerson, an architect, configure it to suit its needs. The firm will have four conference rooms of varying sizes, along with office and reception space.

The 195,000-square-foot Town Centre building in the 200 block of Third Ave. SE was acquired by Emerson in late 2009. It had not been rehabilitated from the June 2008 flood because the owner was part of Lehman Brothers, the Wall Street giant that had unraveled in bankruptcy.

Elderkin & Pirnie specializes in litigation, Childers said, and hopes to use to move to increase its use of technology to become more efficient.

Among the major tenants of the Town Centre building are Bankers Trust, Shive Hattery and Rockwell Collins.

A prospective tenant is in talks for the remaining 8,000 square feet of available space at 324 2nd St. SE, according to Tiffany Earl of Skogman Realty Commercial.