Virginia Bar Association plans to move its headquarters

Published December 7, 2016 by Robert Powell, III

The Virginia Bar Association is moving its Richmond headquarters.

The bar association is moving from 701 E. Franklin St. to 7,300 square feet on the ninth floor in the Bank of America Center at the corner of 12th and Main streets.

The bar association has been a tenant in its present building for 33 years.

The VBA said half of the square footage of the new headquarters would be dedicated to use by bar members.

“If our staff offices are the VBA’s home, the member center will be like our front porch, and like any good Southern porch it will be a welcoming space for meeting, greeting and gathering, both socially and to get stuff done,” VBA President James Patrick Guy II said in a statement.

The floor plan in the new site calls for a large conference room seating 26 people, double the size of the VBA’s existing conference room. Other conference rooms seat six to eight people with huddle rooms accommodating four.

The idea of adding a member center to the VBA’s headquarters came from a strategic facility plan advisory committee.

The new headquarters will include the offices of eight VBA staff members.

A move-in date has not been set. Christina Lee Jeffries, a partner and co-founder of  7 Hills Advisors in Richmond, represented the VBA in its search for a new headquarters site.