Downtown Toledo gains 2 businesses
Perrysburg law firm, Ky. health-care provider sign leases
7/27/2013The perceived resurgence of downtown Toledo has persuaded a business in Perrysburg and one in Kentucky to locate offices here.
Thacker Martinsek LPA, a Cleveland law firm that has had a northwest Ohio office in Levis Commons in Perrysburg since 2009, has relocated that office to the 10th floor of Toledo Edison Plaza, 300 Madison Ave. The firm moved into its new offices on Monday.
Meanwhile, Bluegrass Public Health Consultants LLC of Lexington, Ky., a health-care provider and health-care management firm, has signed a lease to open an office at 241 Superior St. between the Huntington Center and KeyBank.
Thacker Martinsek is occupying nearly 8,000 square feet in Edison Plaza and has 20 employees, including 11 attorneys, in its Toledo office.
While federal, state, county, and municipal court systems are located downtown, Kyle Weigand, administrator of Thacker Martinsek’s Cleveland and Toledo offices, said the law firm could have operated from anywhere. But downtown Toledo offered enough significant advantages to lure the firm there.
“We really needed and wanted to be downtown. There’s a difference between needing and wanting, though,” Mr. Weigand said. “Our attorneys are from Toledo. They are northwest Ohio people and they want to be downtown. There’s a buzz going on in downtown Toledo.”
Marguerite Zinz, an attorney and shareholder of the firm, said “Levis Commons was not a bad place to be.”
As a practical matter, Thacker Martinsek handles national legal issues for national businesses and could have operated from anywhere, Mr. Weigand said. Also, its office space in Perrysburg was comparable at about 8,000 square feet.
However, Ms. Zinz said, “I think it was the overwhelming consensus that, as a law firm, we wanted to be where the legal community was.”
The decision, she added, “was sort of quick. We asked, ‘Should we think about downtown?’ And [the desire to relocate] just grew more and more,” she added.
Mr. Weigand said the firm looked at more than 18 sites in metro Toledo, but was able to customize its space in Edison Plaza, which was a big selling point. Thacker Martinsek's new office is only a block away from Advocates for Basic Legal Equality. That proximity will allow the firm to increase its pro bono efforts, Mr. Weigand said.
“Levis was kind of a great first home for us,” Ms. Zinz said, “but as we have grown and made some additions to the firm it increasingly made more sense … to consider other options. And downtown was the clear choice.”
Mary Creek, co-owner of Bluegrass Public Health Consultants, said the firm still has some licensing restrictions to resolve and cannot discuss its plans.
According to its Web site, the privately owned firm has offices in Lexington and Paris, Ky., and has operated health-care facilities for more than 20 years, including Primary Care, Community-based outpatient, and Social Security disability clinics.
Contact Jon Chavez at: jchavez@theblade.com or 419-724-6128.