CVO Holding Co. has signed a new lease in for its headquarters location at Block23 in Downtown Phoenix. The firm started the lease transaction before the pandemic, but put the deal on hold at the start of the outbreak. Ultimately, the company resumed negotiations months into the pandemic, and signed a lease at the same rate and with no concessions. The deal is indicative of traction in the Phoenix market and the potential for a swift rebound. "

"This is the newest asset in Downtown Phoenix since 2008, so it is the only new building in 12 years," Ryan Timpani, managing director at JLL, tells GlobeSt.com. "We are basically at ground zero as it relates to location, and we are the most heavily amenitized building. Those things, in our opinion, were deemed more important as we come out of this pandemic as it relates to hiring talent and retaining the best employees. We these drivers in the last 36 months, and if anything, they are going to be accelerated as the workforce returns to the office." Timpani and senior associate Nick Bialkowski represented the landlord RED Development in the lease agreement. Chuck Nixon of CBRE represented CVO.

Office will certainly change following the pandemic, and many businesses are deciding how to move forward. One possibility is a hub and spoke model that relies on smaller regional offices with less density. "I think the hub and spoke model is certainly going to prove true, and I think that is going to be a big boon for Phoenix," says Timpani. "A tech company in the Bay Area might not need to have 8,000 people in the campus. Maybe they open several regional offices with 500 employees throughout the Sunbelt region. That is a trend that we are seeing."