Johnson Pope's new office deal in downtown St. Pete offers a glimpse at the workspace of the future
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: May 6, 2020

Law firm Johnson Pope has nearly doubled its office footprint in downtown St. Petersburg, moving into the new space in the midst of a global pandemic.

"I will admit, candidly, if I’d known I'd be finishing up construction and opening up office in the middle of Covid-19, I’d have hit pause," said Guy Burns, managing partner. "But we’re committed."

Johnson Pope has moved from the Synovus Bank building to 490 First Ave. S. Its previous office space was 11,135 square feet; the new office is 20,000 square feet. Burns declined to disclose the investment in the move.

Franklin Street managing director Chris Butler and director Ryan McCurdy represented Johnson Pope in the move. Wannemacher Jensen Architects designed the space and WJCreate, a general contractor and sister company to Wannemacher Jensen, handled construction.

The law firm built future growth into its office space; it has about 40 attorneys in St. Pete, and about 10 offices are empty. Johnson Pope was in talks with four or five additional attorneys, though it's hit pause on recruitment conversations because of the pandemic. While Burns signed the lease long before the pandemic took hold, the law firm is already seeing changes to how its attorneys and employees use their space — changes that office property experts say will likely stick around long after the virus has subsided.

Johnson Pope had a flexible work-from-home policy before the pandemic, with some attorneys opting to work remotely one day each week, Burns said. But he expects a big upswing in remote work going forward.

"I think we will get back to a situation where we are office based, but not as heavily office dependent as before," he said.

Office brokers also expect companies to move away from the open floor plan in favor of spaces that provide physical barriers between employees. Some users have gone to a hotel or plug-and-play concept — in which employees don't have their own spaces but set up at different workstations each day — but Johnson Pope will still have private, individual offices.

Plug-and-play office spaces usually assume that a significant percentage of the workforce will be remote on any given day. Burns said his group has said they would trade a smaller, personal office for a larger, rotating space. The private offices in the new space are "on the small size of medium," he said.

"We will see a combination of people coming in less frequently and office sizes shrinking," Burns said.

In early March, before the pandemic forced Johnson Pope attorneys to work remotely full time, Burns said the law firm tested out the concept to make sure it had the online infrastructure in place. It also adapted new sanitizing and social distancing protocols: No more than four people in a conference room at any one time; when a group leaves the conference room, the facilities coordinator ensured all surfaces were disinfected.

While the closings of big commercial real estate transactions are rarely attended by anyone, home closings are frequently very personal events. The law firm is limiting those to groups of four as well and has masks and gloves on hand for anyone who wants them, Burns said.