In the summer of 2009, around the same time that the Minneapolis-based international corporate law firm Dorsey & Whitney axed 55 staffers, gushing yet more viscera into the legal industry’s recessionary bloodbath, the firm issued a formal notice that it was looking for a real estate broker to assist in its search for new office space in New York City.
Sources who received the solicitation said the square footage in play came to about 70,000 square feet, though that number could not be confirmed with either Cushman & Wakefield (CWK), the brokers ultimately hired by Dorsey & Whitney, nor New York Dorsey partner Robert Dwyer, who, in a polite email, would only say, “Thank you for your interest, but we will pass on the opportunity to speak.”
But if true, that 70,000 square feet would be a significant reduction from what the firm leases now.
A source at Colliers ABR, which handles the leasing at the AEW Capital Management–owned, neo-Classical tower at 250 Park, said Dorsey & Whitney occupies more than 101,000 square feet there, about 19,000 of which it subleases to another firm.
This relocation, in other words, would be what is euphemistically referred to in the industry as a consolidation.
drubinstein@observer.com
