State’s Oldest Law Firm Renews Santa Barbara Lease
Price, Postel & Parma LLP Negotiate to Stay in Downtown Digs
Santa Barbara-based Price, Postel & Parma LLP has renewed its lease for 15 years in the four-story Freitas Building at 200 East Carrillo Street.
Founded in 1852, Price, Postel & Parma is California’s oldest law firm.
The Freitas Building has been under the continual ownership of Joe A. Freitas & Sons for more than 30 years. The law firm will continue to occupy the entire fourth floor and a suite on the third totaling 14,235 square feet of office space.
In terms of square footage, this is the fifth-largest Santa Barbara office lease of the year, a year which so far has featured a spate of large office leases downtown, said representatives at Hayes Commercial Real Estate Group.
By comparison, downtown Santa Barbara has seen 11 office leases larger than 14,000 square feet signed in the past five years, and five of those leases have been completed in the past six months, Hayes officials said.
Francois DeJohn and Steve Hayes represented Price, Postel & Parma, while Greg Bartholomew, also with Hayes, and Jerry Beaver of Pacifica Commercial Realty represented the landlord. The parties have been negotiating for about two years.
“This was not a typical lease renewal,” said Greg Bartholomew. “In the end, the landlord agreed to perform substantial upgrades to the common areas and other features of the building, while the tenant will provide extensive improvements to the premises to address changes in law practice over the years.”
DeJohn said, “The Freitas Building has been an excellent location for Price, Postel & Parma for many years, and the firm was committed to staying in the downtown business district and near the courthouse, so we were glad to negotiate a lease that allowed them to do so.”
The South Coast Biz Blog is a roundup of the latest business news in the Santa Barbara area and is written by Ray Estrada, who has covered business in the region for numerous publications over the past couple decades. See more at independent.com/biz and wordpress.com/southcoastbizblog.
