Honigman to relocate in Kalamazoo

Honigman to relocate in Kalamazoo
Law firm Honigman is relocating to the Trade Centre building from downtown Kalamazoo next year.

KALAMAZOO — Detroit law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP is vacating its downtown Kalamazoo office and relocating to a new office park south of the city’s central business district.

Honigman plans to leave its 17,000-square-foot office at 300 East Michigan Ave. in March in favor of a new building in the Trade Centre office park development located near the South Westnedge Avenue and I-94 interchange.

Phil Torrence, managing partner of the firm’s Kalamazoo office, told MiBiz that the new 18,626-square-foot office will allow Honigman’s approximately 55 attorneys and administrative staff to be located on one floor, providing a number of operating efficiencies and allowing for greater collaboration.

Moreover, the new office’s location helps better serve the firm’s client base from a regional perspective, according to Torrence.

“I think (the move) reflects the regional nature of our practice,” Torrence said. “(We will have) proximity, frankly, to the airport. We have a number of clients from out-of-state who from time to time visit us here in our offices in West Michigan, particularly in our Kalamazoo office. That proximity to the airport and the proximity to other clients that we have up and down the I-94 corridor — it’s just really, really efficient for us.”

The Trade Centre complex is owned by The Hinman Co., a Portage-based real estate firm, and AVB Inc., a Portage-based construction company.

Torrence said Honigman looked for space in downtown Kalamazoo, but ultimately decided that the Trade Centre location made the most sense.

It wasn’t immediately clear which, if any, tenants might be lined up to occupy Honigman’s existing space in the Columbia Plaza building in downtown Kalamazoo.

New projects such as The Exchange high-rise that’s currently being built in the city’s central business district also plan to offer office space. A 2016 report from Downtown Kalamazoo Inc. pegged Kalamazoo’s downtown office vacancy rate at 13.4 percent.