1. We love Hartford. Meghan and Kristen live in Hartford. I’ve spent many days in Hartford courts. My daughter was born in Hartford. I run the Hartford Marathon. My wife works in Hartford. We’re Hartford-y. Locating our office in Hartford was a natural choice.

2. We believe in the future of Hartford. We believe that the business, non-profit, and governmental agencies are pursuing the right policies by encouraging residential development downtown and by making the city more walkable. Our office will benefit from the iQuilt. We love that. Clients can do their will and then walk to dinner and a show at the Bushnell.

Home To Freed McKeen, LLC

3. Our office is going to be gorgeous. We purchased 1900 square feet of office space (900 feet of which at street level on Main Street across from the Federal Court) for a reasonable price. Our office has brick walls, cherry floors, and floor to ceiling glass. We’re fighting through some electrical issues, a little rotted dry wall, and some plumbing issues. When we’re done our office is going to be great. Space you can’t rent. Our acquisition cost was low.

4. Our office is across the street from the Federal Court and within walking distance to every court in Hartford. Never having to feed a meter to go to court is going to be a great feeling. One less worry.

5. Our bank, within walking distance, is located next to a Starbucks and Max Downtown. As if we needed incentive to go to the bank.

6. The City reassessed our space. This made the space more attractive to us by lowering our monthly carrying costs.

7. I can run in Bushnell Park and along the Riverfront. We’re installing a shower in the office so I smell nice while meeting with clients. I can’t think of a better way to train for the Hartford Marathon than daily runs on the course. Want to have a “walking meeting” in Bushnell Park? We do.

8. Our office is within walking distance to Peppercorn’s, Vito’s, Salute, Max Downtown, Trumbull Kitchen, On 20, Agave, Rio, Arch Street Tavern, and the rumored Capital Grille at Front Street. You can’t do better than that. Even in Hartford’s neighbor to the west. We can throw Firebox into that mix as well. We like to walk.

9. Our location will be convenient to our clients. It is easy on and off from both 84 and 91. We have and are going to represent dwellers in Hartford’s downtown.  There’s a bike rack in front of our office. We think that’s perfect.

10. We thought about other places……kind of. We thought of them because we needed to do our diligence. Choosing a location for a business is a major decision. No other place offered anything close to what Hartford offered us.

We don’t need the Whalers to return. We don’t need the City to roll out a new marketing slogan. We’re not waiting for Hartford’s next thing. We love Hartford “as is”.

We love Hartford. We’re happy with our choice. Once we’re done construction (hopefully in August), stop by our office. When you see our office, and meet us, you’ll know exactly why we’re in Hartford.

We’re moving into a mostly vacant commercial space at the Linden. As of today, we have one neighbor. We’ve been called pioneers. We’ve been called brave. We may be both of those things. More than anything, we think choosing Hartford is smart.

In Meghan’s words:

We didn’t want to ensconce our law firm in a tower, either.  We didn’t want views of the city from on high, We wanted to look through our windows and see people’s faces.  We wanted to step from our front door right onto the Main Street.

We didn’t want temporary walls and carpet, we wanted brick and wood.  We didn’t want to lease in Hartford, we wanted to invest in Hartford.

Check out Meghan’s videos of the construction “Upstairs Downstairs” and “Under Construction“.

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Freed McKeen, LLC is a Hartford law firm. We’re located in Unit 103 at the Linden. Our office is at street level on Main Street directly across from the Federal Court. We hope to open our doors in September 2012.