It’s still too early to measure the outsized impact the coronavirus pandemic is having on downtown Hartford’s office realty market.
Many companies eyeing an expansion or relocation downtown have either delayed or altered those plans as the health crisis forces many companies to work from home, pushing the center-city’s office vacancy rate to 20.4% at the end of the second quarter, according to CBRE.
But not all companies are changing course.
Global accounting giant RSM US LLP says it’s moving forward with redesigning its newly leased, 11,000-square-foot office at downtown’s 30-story Goodwin Square tower ahead of its expected move-in date next May.
It’s not yet clear how much the renovation project will cost, but RSM says its 23rd-floor space on Asylum Street will be large enough to accommodate at least 60 employees.
RSM US LLP isn’t new to Connecticut. The Chicago-based audit, tax and consulting firm already has about 337 employees located in New Haven, Stamford and Farmington offices.
However, once the Hartford location opens, the firm will close its New Haven outpost and move those employees to the Capital City in order to extend its customer base in the northern portion of the state and western Massachusetts, gain better access to Greater Hartford’s diverse talent, and offer better amenities and meeting spaces for clients, the firm said.
“It strategically aligns to our continued growth in the middle market industry,” said RSM Partner Susan A. Martinelli, who will lead the Hartford office. “The location in Hartford really helps to position us to better serve the entire state with our resources.”
RSM, she said, started touring Hartford offices long before the pandemic hit Connecticut in March, and signed a lease for the Goodwin Square space in May, even as most of its employees in the state were working from home. (Some workers have since been allowed back in the office on a limited basis.)
Martinelli didn’t name which buildings RSM had toured, but said the search process made it clear that landlords downtown have made significant upgrades in recent years to woo new office tenants.
“In the end, Goodwin Square was the best fit for our needs as we continue to grow,” she said.
In addition to its new office space, RSM is planning to bolster its Connecticut ranks by hiring about 35 people this fall and another 40 this winter. Martinelli said the firm recruits candidates from colleges across the state, and has beefed up its workforce pipeline in recent years through summer internships in its Pathways Leadership Program.
The annual internship program was held virtually this summer due to the pandemic, and connected 1,200 students from the U.S. and Canada to various training and networking opportunities.
Those opportunities will be crucial as RSM’s recruitment brass will likely be competing with other major Hartford area accounting firms, including PwC, Marcum LLP, blumshapiro, Deloitte and CohnReznik LLP, among others.
“A lot of the time we have a pipeline of professionals who are interested in joining us,” Martinelli said. “It seems that firms start earlier and earlier these days to expose their firms to different students as they progress through what they want to do in their career.”
RSM, which has about 43,000 employees in more than 800 offices globally, has had a large presence in Connecticut since the late 1980s. Its Connecticut practice alone serves more than 2,200 clients.
Across the Northeast, RSM also has offices in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The firm has been collaborating with local designers in recent weeks on the preliminary design of its new Hartford office. Martinelli says the office will likely mirror RSM’s other spaces, which have all created larger distances between workstations to keep employees safe during the pandemic.
“COVID has an impact on how we design the space, but overall I would say it’s consistent with what our other spaces look like considering distance between work areas,” she said. “We are excited to be a contributor to the Hartford community.”
