December 2006

WSBA On The Move

by Stephanie Perry

How do you move a bar association? Well, it takes a little patience, a lot of planning, and plenty of helping hands. On December 8-10, the WSBA will be leaving its present location at 2101 4th Avenue in Seattle and moving to new offices closer to the downtown core — 1325 4th Avenue, Suite 600, in the Puget Sound Plaza building, to be exact. But while the physical move will take just one weekend, the project has actually been in the works for several years.

Assessing the WSBA’s Needs

In early 2001, the Board of Governors appointed a committee to study the WSBA’s needs for office space, and how to best meet those needs in the future. The committee asked lawyers around the state about their service needs from the WSBA, and studied the needs of Bar staff as well. The committee examined questions such as whether the Bar should own rather than rent; whether the Bar offices should remain in Seattle or move elsewhere; what facilities visiting lawyers need at the Bar offices; and what facilities the various Bar divisions require. Ensuring adequate visitor parking was also a priority.

“Beginning our search for office space as early as we did was both a blessing and a burden,” explained WSBA Immediate Past-President S. Brooke Taylor. “It gave us time to be very thorough in our search and our analysis, and it also allowed us to be in the market at a time when downtown Seattle lease rates had dropped substantially as a result of the ‘dot-com bust,’ and there was a significant amount of space available.” All that research, he said, paid off in the end. “Many factors entered into the decision to move to Puget Sound Plaza, with the key consideration always being to find that facility and location which would be best for our members and for our staff of 135 professionals. Access and parking were huge considerations, with the latter having been a major problem at our existing location.

“I am pleased to report that we have been able to do this without any special assessment or any increase in licensing fees, other than that which we experience annually in order to keep up with inflation,” Taylor added.

The committee found that the flexibility of renting a space, rather than owning, was the preferable option. They also concluded that staying in downtown Seattle would provide the easiest accessibility for staff and visitors. The Bar’s new lease is for 10 years, with two options to extend the term for additional terms of five years each. The new location will provide more convenient access to organizations such as the King County Bar Association, the Legal Foundation of Washington, and LAW Fund, as well as lawyers whose offices are located in downtown Seattle.

Puget Sound Plaza

“Our new space in Puget Sound Plaza will afford adequate space for all of WSBA’s staff operations, good parking, a new hearing room for disciplinary hearings, meeting rooms, and a visiting lawyer’s office,” commented WSBA President Ellen Conedera Dial. “The building is in the heart of the downtown business district, with excellent access to bus lines and ferries, and, for visitors and others arriving by car, easy access on and off of the freeway.” The WSBA is also taking advantage of the move to upgrade its telephone system to better serve members, staff, and other callers.

The new space comprises 52,785 rentable square feet, an increase of 17,322 square feet from the Fourth & Blanchard building. The WSBA will occupy floors 6, 7, 8, and a portion of 11. The reception area, public meeting spaces, and the hearing room will all be located on Floor 6.

Customizing the Space

WSBA department directors met with the architects to discuss how each department operates, and the various space needs for storage, offices, workstations, copy areas, meetings, etc. The space at Puget Sound Plaza was designed to accommodate existing staff and temporary workers, as well as projected staff growth over the next 10 years. The new space will accommodate a total of 168 staff. Strict standards were developed to determine how many offices and workstations would be built. The result was 70 offices and 98 workstations. The WSBA’s new offices at Puget Sound Plaza will provide adequate space for staff to do their work, including filing and project areas in each department.

Ensuring adequate meeting space was another important issue. The WSBA hosted more than 2,100 meetings last year, and currently does not have enough room to accommodate the needs of staff and members. The meeting space at Puget Sound Plaza is slightly larger than at Fourth & Blanchard, to better accommodate the various meetings and CLEs that are held on-site. The public meeting rooms are designed so that the larger rooms can be divided into smaller rooms as needed. In addition, medium- and small-sized conference rooms will be spread throughout the space to accommodate smaller staff meetings. The total meeting space (public and internal) programmed for Puget Sound Plaza is estimated to be 12 percent of the usable space (4,144 square feet), compared to 11 percent at the Fourth & Blanchard building (3,562 square feet).

Special Features

A new hearing room is also among the planned improvements. At the Fourth & Blanchard building, 663 square feet of space was leased on the second floor to create a small hearing room. The current amount of space has proven to be inadequate, though, since the nature of WSBA’s hearings has evolved over the years to be more like courtroom trials. Based on feedback from disciplinary counsel, hearing officers, respondents’ counsel, and other staff, the hearing-room facility at Puget Sound Plaza is planned to be just over twice the size of the current hearing room. It will consist of a main hearing room, two witness rooms (which can also be used by others when not being used for hearings), one hearing-officer room, and a storage area.

An Arts Committee was appointed to oversee the look and feel of the new space, including the color palette, décor, carpets, and paint. The committee is also responsible for new signage and the selection of public art. The goal, said Michels, was to create an environment that was “professional, not opulent.” She explained, “We picked organic colors to reflect Northwest style, but we also wanted it to have some panache …. It’ll be a better, lighter space. Visitors will notice an upgrade in our furniture, and staff will notice we’re no longer sitting on top of one another! It should be a more collegial place, with areas for people to stand and talk.”

The new building is a UNICO property, owned by the University of Washington, which, Michels said, shares the WSBA’s commitment to features such as access for persons with disabilities and wheelchair-accessible restrooms. “It’s a very pleasant, professional, welcoming space for us,” she said.
 
Uninterrupted Service

Moving 135 people — and their workspaces — is no easy task, but preparations have been made to ensure that it goes as smoothly as possible. The WSBA has contracted with a project-management team that is highly experienced in moving organizations in and out of downtown office buildings. The move is planned to occur over the weekend of December 9-10; staff will pack up their own offices and workstations on Thursday and Friday, and unpack them in the new space on the following Monday.

Every effort will be made to ensure that there is as little interruption of service as possible during the move. “We expect that critical computer functions will be functioning right up until the close of business on the Friday before the move, and again first thing on the following Monday morning,” said Dial. “We should expect a very busy time for the move, but with professionals at the helm, the move should be a predictable and efficient process. Once we are settled into the new space, we will begin planning an open house for members, staff, and families. We look forward to celebrating the move to new offices!”

Stephanie Perry is the WSBA communications specialist and can be reached at stephaniep@wsba.org.