JVP lures new tenants to downtown

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Daniel, Powell & Kiefer LLC, the Council of Churches of the Ozarks Foundation and Development Management Ser-vices LLC announced Jan. 29 that they had moved into the former Meek's headquarters building at 330 N. Jefferson, owned by United Way of the Ozarks.|ret||ret||tab|

Daniel, Powell & Kiefer is leasing approximately 6,000 square feet of the 13,500-square-foot facility, and subletting a portion of that space to DMS and the CCO Foundation.|ret||ret||tab|

The rest of the building is oc-cupied by the Community Part-nership of the Ozarks, which includes Caring Communities, AmeriCorps and Ozarks Fight-ing Back.|ret||ret||tab|

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Daniel, Powell & Kiefer|ret||ret||tab|

A new firm resulting from the breakup of 53-year-old Daniel, Clampett, Powell & Cunning-ham LLC, Daniel Powell & Kiefer comprises five partners William D. Powell, Charles F. Kiefer Jr., James H. Wesley II, Paul F. Sherman, and Bryan T. Renfrow plus a support staff of six.|ret||ret||tab|

The firm's areas of expertise include insurance defense, workers' compensation, estate planning and real estate law.|ret||ret||tab|

In the decision to form their own firm, "one major factor that was in all of our minds was that this was an opportunity, late in our careers ... to look around and say, this is the person that I want to be partners with for the rest of my legal career," Ren-frow said.|ret||ret||tab|

The firm plans to grow, but the goal is not to become a large 20- to 25-person firm. Rather, the partners would like to selectively take on individual associates with the intent of eventually making them partners.|ret||ret||tab|

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Location, location, location|ret||ret||tab|

Convenience, nostalgia and the power of networking all played a role in bringing the new law firm downtown.|ret||ret||tab|

Like many attorneys, Powell began his legal career downtown in the 1970s. "Then, everyone was either in the Woodruff Building or the Holland Building or the McDaniel Building, and this was the hub of Springfield." |ret||ret||tab|

When Powell and partners began looking for office space, former partner Penni Rush Groves suggested the 330 N. Jef-ferson building. Groves' father is John Rush, executive director of the United Way, which owns the building.|ret||ret||tab|

Convenient to courts and governmental facilities with covered parking at the door, the location is also right on the edge of Jordan Valley Park. A greenways trail connecting JVP and Founders Park will be right at the building's doorstep.|ret||ret||tab|

"When you look from the top of the (Benton Avenue) viaduct, on either side, and you see the governmental plaza, you see the court facility, you see OTC, see all of the land that's been cleared for various things, see the hockey arena, see all the plans, it's amazing what's been done in the last five years, and you know that in the next five years even greater things will be done," Kiefer said.|ret||ret||tab|

The lease for the 330 N. Jefferson property was signed at the end of De-cember and the firm moved in Jan. 12. Among the amenities the firm enjoys are a 50-space parking lot, a large conference room, snack bar, a small conference room for meetings or taking depositions, a patio and vast storage space.|ret||ret||tab|

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The deal|ret||ret||tab|

When Community Partnership of the Ozarks lost its office space at Seminole Baptist Church, "Charlie O'Reilly, who was very involved in Community Part-nership of the Ozarks, started looking around for a building," Rush said. He found the former Meek's headquarters at 330 N. Jefferson, right across the street from United Way, but CPO only needed about half of the space. |ret||ret||tab|

"The idea was to lease the rest of the building at a favorable rate so we wouldn't keep losing our shirts, because we had twice the building we needed," Rush said.|ret||ret||tab|

However, finding the right tenant was essential.|ret||ret||tab|

"I had talked to the Police Depart-ment, I had talked to the school system, I had talked to a not-for-profit agency about going in there because I wanted it all to go. I didn't want to go by suites; I didn't want to deal with 10 different tenants," Rush said. |ret||ret||tab|

Not a Realtor himself, Rush looked to the business community for expert ad-vice on what to do with the building.|ret||ret||tab|

"I got a lot of good advice from More-lock-Ross on how to do it," Rush said. "I talked to Jamie Sivils and said How do I do this?' and he said, This is how much money you have to have out of it, this is what your lease should look like,' and they were really terrific."|ret||ret||tab|

Meanwhile, "People had been calling me about that facility, and one of the organizations that called was (Devel-opment Management Services') Mac McCartney and Larry Freund, and then they associated with Dick Dunn and it just all kind of came together," Rush said.|ret||ret||tab|

Tenants|ret||ret||tab|

McCartney, Freund and Dunn work together at Development Management Services LLC, a management consulting firm specializing in children, aging and social services agencies. DMS provides consulting on fund raising, financial ser-vices, strategic planning, general management, human resources, investment banking and government relations. |ret||ret||tab|

The Council of Churches of the Ozarks Foundation, headed by Dunn as its newly appointed president, also is a tenant at the former Meek's headquarters. Dunn is the former chief executive officer of Boys & Girls Town of Missouri Inc. and is the former director of Missouri's Division of Aging and Senior Services.|ret||ret||tab|

The CCO Foundation's goal is to build its endowments to the point that it finance up to 25 percent of its agencies' needs, providing a safety net.|ret||ret||tab|

According to Powell, there are two office spaces still available for sublet.[[In-content Ad]]