When business is slow: move to a new office.
Stoel Rives has repotted its group of four Tahoe City attorneys to downtown Truckee, to a historic brick building overlooking the water.
“I’m so happy,” partner Mike Brown gushed over the telephone this week. “I’m looking at the lake right now.” By lake, he means the Truckee River that flows through downtown. See photo from his new offices. The old office didn’t have a view of the lake.
The idea to move took shape about three years ago, partner Randy Faccinto tells us. But back then, the office was too busy working for land owners and developers in the Lake Tahoe basin (among them Royal Gorge, Intrawest Corp. and Timilick Golf Course — and Faccinto emphasized that the office has not abandoned work in the Tahoe basin).
During the real estate boom in the early part of this decade, so many people wanted larger residences and second homes, and there were the golf courses. “Right now, everything is slow,” Faccinto, who splits his time between San Francisco and the Tahoe area, said. Truckee is not that much busier, Faccinto admits, but he expects it to come back with more work than the Tahoe area because it has fewer restrictions on development.
Two other reasons to move: it’s easier to drive to the firm’s Sacramento and Las Vegas offices. And the rent’s gone down. At the height of the boom, office space went for about $30 per square foot. “Now we’re in the low $20s,” Faccinto said.
Brown, whose real estate litigation practice is more Truckee-centric and who lives in the town, said that his commute is now five minutes. “I’m hoping to bike to the office this summer.”
— Petra Pasternak
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