Alschuler Grossman to Relocate to Santa Monica

Through a 10-year sublease deal with Turner Broadcasting Systems thought to be valued at more than $30 million, law firm Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan will move west from its longtime Century City home to eastern Santa Monica’s commercial hub.

The firm is taking over 85,000 square feet of offices at the Water Garden I office complex previously occupied by another law firm--Haight Brown & Bonesteel--which relocated a few miles south to the Howard Hughes Center.

Alschuler’s move from Century City’s Century Plaza Towers comes as rents for vacant offices in that part of Santa Monica are off markedly from their recent peaks. Landlords are competing with tenants such as Turner that are trying to sublease unneeded space.

Turner had previously agreed to relocate its Century City operations to the Water Garden, but later decided it wouldn’t need the former Haight Brown space, and engaged brokers Cindy White, Robert Chavez and Carol Roth of Staubach Co. to find sublessors. Meanwhile the 1999 merger of Alschuler Grossman & Pines and Stein & Kahan prompted the enlarged firm to consider a move. Brokers Hunt Barnett and Clay Hammerstein of Insignia/ESG and Joel Kurtz at Bailes & Associates represented the law firm.

The brokers declined to discuss financial specifics of Alschuler’s sublease deal with TBS, but knowledgeable Westside real estate sources estimated the law firm will pay about $37.50 per square foot per year. Turner’s average annual rent over the course of it’s 11-year lease is about $43 or $44 per square foot.