Panera Bread has signed a long-term lease for its first bakery café in Hartford. The restaurant will be on Main Street in State House Square, a 844,000-square-foot office complex in the city’s central business district.

Jones Lang LaSalle Executive Vice President Shawn McMahon represented State House Square ownership, a subsidiary of FBE Limited and Cammeby’s International, in this long-term, 4,600-square-foot lease. Panera was represented by Harmon Lewis of National Commercial Brokers Inc. The opening is scheduled for early spring 2013.

"Our new State House Square bakery-café will be our 15th Connecticut bakery-café and our first in downtown Hartford," Tom Howley, a partner in the Howley Bread Group, a Panera Bread franchisee, said in a statement. "We are very excited to join the other great tenants at State House Square, and to become part of the growing vibrancy of Hartford’s central business, retail and residential community."