The long-awaited Cira Centre has opened its doors.
Eight hundred members of Dechert LLP -- an international law firm with headquarters in Center City and more than 900 lawyers worldwide -- moved in on Halloween and tenants continue to move into the building.
"If you saw this place on Sunday morning ... you never would have believed how much could have been accomplished in order for our lawyers to be up and working on Monday," said Rich Rizzo, managing partner for the firm's Philadelphia office.
The Cira Centre is a 29-story steel and glass building located across from 30th Street Station. Aside from customization of tenant office spaces, the building is complete and the lobby and pedestrian bridge that connects to the station have been open to the public since October.
Steve Rush, spokesman for the Brandywine Realty Trust -- the developer and owner of the Cira Centre -- said that the construction was within budget. When work on the interior office spaces is completed, the project will have cost about $180 million.
Currently, 93 percent of the building is leased, with Dechert, the leading tenant, occupying eight floors. Rush said that his company is seeking a 100 percent occupancy rate by the end of this year.
The majority of tenants will not move in until the first quarter of 2006. Another law firm, Woodcock Washburn; two money managers, BlackRock Inc. and Attalus Capital; consulting firm McKinsey & Co.; and SCA, a manufacturing company, are among the firms that will call the Cira Centre home.
"There's so many of us that I don't think it feels empty," Rizzo said. The 1969 Penn Law graduate said that aside from a few computer and telephone glitches, the move was a smooth one.
"I have everything put away except one box," he said.
Retail amenities include two restaurants, a fitness center and a Citizens Bank ATM. The restaurants' names were not released since negotiations have not been finalized.
Rush said that although the Cira Centre is not fully occupied, traffic has been flowing on the pedestrian bridge. He said that about 600 people travel over the bridge with Wednesday as the peak day but that the arrival of Dechert has resulted in an increase of 800 pedestrians daily.
The Cira Centre has received visits from Penn and Drexel students as well.
"From a city-planning and architectural standpoint, there's been a great deal of interest," Rush said. Wharton and architecture students have toured the building in the last month.
Rush sees the Cira Centre as providing job opportunities for college graduates.
"A large part of the reason why they're coming to the building is because they have unparalleled access to intellectual capital," Rush said of companies that decide to move to the building. Sixty-seven percent of the tenants come from headquarters outside of Philadelphia.
Wharton senior Josh Barbash, who drives by the Cira Centre daily, said he would consider taking a trip to the building for job-searching reasons.
"If the firm I was interested in working at was there, I'd go," he said.
However, College junior Jonathan Frankel said he would only go if the restaurants were appealing.
"I wouldn't take the time to go inside because I haven't heard much about it," he said.
For Lisa Kraus, a staff member in Penn's Office of Environmental Health and Radiation Safety -- located at the Left Bank -- the Cira Centre's facade is enough to warrant a visit.
"It kind of looks very luring for me outside, so I would want to see the inside," she said.
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