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July 6, 2010 Portlandbiz

Smaller tenants expected to fill One Monument Square

By Robert M. Cook

Jim Harnden expects it will be a mix of tenants who will occupy the top floors of One Monument Square when current tenant Pierce Atwood relocates to the Portland waterfront.

"We're actively marketing it now," says Harnden, a partner with Malone Commercial Brokers and the former owner of Ram Harnden Real Estate. The lease on Pierce Atwood's 75,000 square feet expires March 31, the deadline Harnden is working under to find new tenants.

So far, he has shown the building to several prospective tenants interested in leasing portions of the 122,000-square-foot building, but no one who might want to lease the top five floors that Pierce Atwood, the state's largest law firm, occupies.

"I don't expect to find that," says Harnden. "There aren't that many 75,600-square-foot tenants in Maine."

The landlord is Congress Federal Trust, a company owned by Bill Finard, who also owns Finard Properties of Burlington, Mass. Harnden says Finard has invested millions of dollars to improve the Class A office building with views of Portland Harbor and the skyline. The property is located right in the heart of the downtown district.

Pierce Atwood announced in May it wanted to move its 175 employees from its offices on Monument Square to the 100,000-square-foot Cumberland Self Storage building on Commercial Street when its lease expires. The Portland City Council approved a $2.8 million tax break to help the law firm defray the estimated $12 million of renovation and rehabilitation costs to move into the five-story brick building on a wharf adjacent to Portland Fish Pier.

Harnden envisions several future One Monument Square tenants with five- to 10-year leases. He says the first floor is ideal restaurant/retail space to go along with KeyBank, which leases space there. Pierce Promotion, which is not associated with Pierce Atwood, occupies half of the second floor and all of the third and fourth floors and that company, too, wish to remain in the building, he says.

The fifth and sixth floors are leasing for $22 per square foot and the seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th floors are leasing for $25 per square foot, he says. Both lease rates include operating expenses, real estate taxes and HVAC expenses, but not parking.

"These rates are very competitive with other Class A buildings on the market," Harnden says.

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