Law firms continue to drive leasing velocity in Denver’s newest buildings as 2022 progresses, with Davis Graham & Stubbs agreeing to lease 80K SF in Paradigm River North, a new office building by Jordon Perlmutter & Co. and Rockefeller Group.

Paradigm River North at 3400 Walnut St. is a 200K SF development that kicked off construction earlier this year and represents the third investment in the Denver market for New York-based Rockefeller. Davis Graham & Stubbs, which has operated in Denver for a century, plans to move into its new space in 2024.

Office leasing picked up in the first quarter of 2022, with tenants taking 2.1M SF of office space, showing improvement over the depressed levels seen in 2020 and 2021, according to data from Savills.

Activity continued into the second quarter, led in large part by law firms seeking to upgrade and condense their space according to their new needs and with an eye toward employee recruitment and retention.

Denver’s River North area is one of the submarkets in the city’s core that has rebounded more quickly from the depths of the pandemic, with office users shifting their focus to newer, trendier buildings and away from the city’s stock of older office towers built decades ago.

“The RiNo Art District brings so much to the equation in terms of the factors that are driving office location decisions today, namely opportunities for collaboration, culture and experiences,” Rockefeller Senior Managing Director and Head of Development in the Rocky Mountain region Jay Despard said in a statement.

River North tends to draw higher rental rates than the overall metro area on average, according to Savills’ report, with the RiNo-LoDo-Central Platte Valley area bringing in about $48 per SF on a gross basis, compared to $32 for the metro area as a whole.