A law firm's commitment to staying in downtown Portland, Oregon, paid off after months of searching for a new office building. MRHFM, a national law firm dedicated to representing mesothelioma victims and their families, signed a 75-month lease at the One Main Place building in downtown Portland in August 2024.
The deal was recognized as the lease of the year in Portland as part of the 2025 CoStar Impact Awards, which were judged by real estate professionals familiar with the market.
Finally signing the lease was a long time coming for the law firm. Its lease was not yet up at its prior office building until August 2025, but the company was seeking a move due to safety concerns, parking inefficiencies, incohesive office design and more.
It underwent three different rounds of tours between November 2022 and August 2023. The law firm was seeking between 9,000 and 11,000 of rentable square feet and parking in a safe and secure spot because of its staff's long working hours.
A space on the 18th floor of the One Main Place building went on the market but it was a larger space than the firm was originally looking for. MRHFM took a tour anyway and concluded it could feasibly split the space in two. This got the OK from the building's ownership, San Francisco-based New York Life Investments.
MRHFM was eligible for the Downtown Business Incentive Credit because it signed a lease longer than four years, leased within the subdistricts identified, has 15 or more employees, and employees are in the office more than half the time.
About the project: MRHFM also liked that the space was already built out with high-end specs and that office furniture was included at no additional cost, along with nine guaranteed parking spaces with the ability to add nine more parking spaces month to month.
What the judges said: "The decision by MRHFM and their broker to prioritize the central Portland location has outsized importance in the current era of skepticism for urban locations and softening interest in Portland. The efforts of the broker to reach a satisfying outcome for all is critically important. MRHFM should be commended for their initiative to invest in the core city," said Will Dowdy, community development director for the city of Eugene. And Julia Freybote, associate professor of finance and real estate in the school of business at Portland State University, said that although the deal "was relatively small, this lease signals signs of life in the downtown Portland office market, which is encouraging. I appreciate the tenant's commitment to downtown as well as their collaboration with the landlord when it came to splitting the space and giving the landlord the option to rent the remaining square feet on the floor, with a more desirable view, to another tenant."
They made it happen: Cresa Principal Kelsey Machuca; CBRE Vice President Sarah Phillips; Cresa Project Manager and Advisor Andre Davis MRED; CBRE Senior Vice President Sean Turley; Cushman & Wakefield General Manager Jesse Neufeld.