Historic Grand Rapids Pike House becomes new home for lawyers at Keller & Almassian

Restored to its former glory by architects at Design Plus back in 2007, the historic Pike House at 230 E. Fulton in Grand Rapids is now home to law firm Keller & Almassian. 

The two-story, 18,500-square-foot Pike House is on the National Register of Historic Places, its four massive Greek columns first dragged to the site by ox cart from Port Sheldon back in 1844 by the building’s namesake Abram W. Pike.

“A lot of the credit for that goes to the previous owners, Design Plus,” says Todd Almassian, whose firm acquired the property back in October 2013. “They bought the property in 2006 and they did a marvelous job of bringing the property really to its grand status that it has now. They did significant improvements to the interior.”

Its previous office located on East Beltline, Almassian says he and his law firm knew they wanted to look for a new space closer to the city that still afforded them on-site parking and room for future physical growth. 

“The space just really worked out well for us in terms of having plenty of parking on-site. That was a primary concern for us. There was room in the building for growth — that was something we needed,” Almassian says. “It’s right down the street from bankruptcy court and we’re primarily a bankruptcy law firm so that makes it nice in terms of accessibility. We wanted to spend the rest of our careers as downtown attorneys and all of the other aspects associated with that.” 

He says he thinks having a downtown location is beneficial to most businesses and business people simply because it organically facilitates more physical movement, more impromptu conversations with colleagues, a greater sense of community and investment in seeing the downtown thrive. 

“It’s such a vibrant downtown now and everybody is really focusing — both I think personally and professionally — on seeing downtown as a real hub of the greater Grand Rapids area for social and for work. We just found that a relocation would be beneficial for us and it has been.”

Written by Anya Zentmeyer, Development News Editor
Images courtesy of Keller & Almassian, PLC

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