0 Boylston Street Office Rents Rank 7th on List of Country’s Most Expensive

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Boston Herald

Boylston Street in Boston’s Back Bay is expensive, but not too expensive. In the 2nd quarter of this year my company signed an expansion and renewal at 745 Boylston Street after conducting a thorough search for alternate options. We chose to stay and expand based on our attraction to the area’s amenities, proximity to highways and our customers.

Office rents on Boylston Street, however, do rank among the priciest in the country, according to the Boston Herald.

From the Boston Herald:

The Back Bay’s main thoroughfare has an average rent of $67.44 per square foot, thanks to its marquis office properties and tenant list dominated by hedge funds, and private equity and law firms, according to a report by Jones Lang LaSalle, a Chicago commercial real estate company…Those factors have allowed Boylston Street landlords to raise rents 1.3 times faster than on other cities’ most expensive streets since 2013, the JLL report states. And Boston Properties’ 888 Boylston St., a 17-story office tower set for completion next summer, already has signed record-high leases.

0 Map of Boston Coworking Office Space

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Coworking office space in Boston by geographic location, courtesy of Xconomy:

map of boston and cambridge shared office space

Credit: Xconomy

Andy Palmer, a Boston serial entrepreneur and angel investor, ‘thinks Boston would be best served by a series of spaces spread among different neighborhoods along the subway system’s Red Line, which touches the city’s busiest startup hubs, including Kendall Square in Cambridge and the Seaport District and Downtown Crossing in Boston. And if you look at the map, that strategy seems to be playing out…Boston’s neighborhoods “all need good, solid coworking spaces because they all have startups and founders that want to do startups in these areas,” Palmer says. “It’s healthy to have these short-term lease options in every one of these areas.”’

0 Boston to Limit Office Tower Signs

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Wil Catlin

office building of PwC in downtown Boston

Credit: Boston Globe

To get you companies name in lights on a building in Boston will now be a formalized policy according to the BRA. Personally I am a fan of fewer signs rather than seeing our rooftops littered with every brand that occupies our city.

According to a Boston Globe article, “The Boston Redevelopment Authority is working on a new sign policy, one that would formalize by early next year the agency’s often-informal approach, just as Boston’s building boom could bring another round of requests for prominent corporate signage.”

0 4 Class A Buildings in Boston Under Construction with At Least 50k Sq. Ft.

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Wil Catlin

According to CoStar, there are 4 Class A buildings under construction that can accommodate users of 50,000 square feet or more. They are located in the Seaport and Back Bay and have combined number of 1,610,202 square feet.

Building Address	Submarket Name	Number Of Stories	Rentable Building Area	Typical Floor Size	Max Floor Contiguous Space	Total Available Space (SF)
888 Boylston	Back Bay	17	425,000	25,000	26,170	89,173
100 Northern Ave	Seaport	17	395,202	23,247	32,006	154,931
140 Northern Ave	Seaport	13	375,000	30,769	28,846	374,998
121 Seaport Blvd	Seaport	17	415,000	24,412	34,400	414,202
Total			1,610,202

0 Boston Class A Office Space with at Least 50k Sq. Ft. Draws Interest

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Skanska

According to CoStar there are 20 Class A properties that can offer 50,000 square feet or more of contiguous office space in the Seaport, Back Bay or the Financial District (see full chart below).

From the Boston Globe:

Despite Boston’s development boom, big chunks of office space are scarce right now. As of Oct. 1, there were 17 tenants looking for 50,000 square feet or more of top-end office space in downtown Boston, according to real estate firm JLL, and just 11 blocks big enough to house them. That means buildings with room are drawing interest.

Three would-be tenants have proposed leasing all 180,000 square feet that Boston Properties has at 120 St. James, in the base of the old John Hancock Tower, president Douglas Linde told analysts recently. The space PWC left behind for the Seaport, at 125 High Street, also went quick. And Goodwin Procter’s soon-to-be-former home at 53 State has seen strong interest.

One addition to that list may soon be Skanska, offering “brand-new space with all the bells and whistles.”

Building Address	Building Name	Submarket Name	Max Building Contiguous Space
200 Berkeley St	Berkeley Bldg	Back Bay	50,266
501 Boylston St		Back Bay	62,644
200 Clarendon St	John Hancock Tower	Back Bay	121,989
2 Copley Pl	Tower 2	Back Bay	122,606
101 Huntington Ave		Back Bay	60,858
111 Huntington Ave		Back Bay	70,191
31 Saint James Ave	Park Square Bldg	Back Bay	91,000
1 Beacon St	One Beacon	Financial District	105,786
1 Federal St	One Federal Street	Financial District	55,038
101 Federal St	101 Federal Street	Financial District	69,873
160 Federal St	Landmark	Financial District	54,221
One Financial Ctr	One Financial Center	Financial District	59,106
125 High St	High Street Tower	Financial District	78,034
50 Milk St		Financial District	39,644
50 Post Office Sq		Financial District	117,200
53 State St	Exchange Place	Financial District	382,332
60 State St		Financial District	57,897
100 Summer St		Financial District	115,402
40 Water St	Congress Square	Financial District	363,834
101 Seaport Blvd	PricewaterhouseCoopers	Seaport	77,646

0 Boston’s Office Building Boom is Centralized

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Wil Catlin

200 Clarendon Back Bay Last week I took a tour of the 48th floor at 200 Clarendon Street with Wayland Club Scouts, hosted by Patrick Mulvihill of Boston Properties, and “wow” was the comment echoed by all the scout’s and their parents. Now, the floor was completely shelled out with nothing but a cement floor, deck above and exterior windows. It was a great experience and the perfect perch to see how our city is growing vertically.

The growth, however, is consolidated in a few central areas – all of which were perfectly visible from the 48th floor.

From Curbed:

“Tim Logan broke down recent numbers from the Boston Redevelopment Authority that show 83 major projects going up in 19 of the city’s 25 neighborhoods for a total cost construction-wise of around $7 billion. “Yet they’re concentrated in a relative handful of places. About $4 billion worth of the construction — it includes everything from housing to hotels to new storefronts — is taking place in just three neighborhoods: the Seaport, downtown, and the Back Bay. Count the number of projects, and nearly a fourth are in two neighborhoods: South Boston and the Fenway.”

0 Boston Office Market Closes 10th Consecutive Quarter of Positive Absorption

Posted on November 23, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: TransWestern.net

The Boston Office market continues ahead with its 10th positive quarter of absorption.

From TWurls.com:

Greater Boston’s office market closed its 10th straight quarter of positive growth, albeit at a much slower pace than the 15-year record high of 2 million square feet absorbed during second-quarter, according to “officeSTATus — Q3 2015,” a new research report from Transwestern | RBJ. Despite tenants absorbing only 36,000 square feet of office space during third-quarter 2015, the market has seen a robust 3.6 million square feet of positive absorption during the past 12 months Ë•’ a more accurate indicator of market strength.

“We were unlikely to maintain the pace that was set during the second quarter, which had the highest absorption rate since the dot-com boom in 2000,” said Northeast Research Director Chase Bourdelaise. “An important contributor to the robust 12-month absorption growth is the continued positive gains to the region’s office-using employment, which has increased 12.0 percent since 2009.”

0 HYM Releases New Plans for Government Center Project

Posted on November 23, 2015 by Wil Catlin

The plans for Government Center have been updated by HYM. The proposed plan consists of the following:

Credit: Bizjournals.com

Two Apartment Tower:
- 486 units at 480 feet in height
- 291 Units at 299 feet in height
Two Office Towers
- 1 million square feet at 528 feet in height
- 163,800 square feet at 157 feet in height
Parking of 1,159 spaces
Condo/Hotel Tower at 152 feet in height
Retail build to suit that will anchor the Canal side of the site

From the BBJ:

The first phase, for which HYM submitted documentation on Monday, is a 45-story, 486-unit residential tower located along New Sudbury Street and a 43-story, 1 million-square-foot office tower located at the corner of New Chardon and Congress streets…HYM’s original plans had the office tower at 600 feet, and a hotel parcel at 275 feet, but those plans were revised in August 2013 to a 528-foot office tower and a 157-foot hotel. The Boston Redevelopment Authority approved the project in November 2013.

HYM’s project aims to connect Boston’s Bulfinch Triangle, Government Center, the West End, the North End and Beacon Hill with a near five-acre development area. It’s slated to be among the largest construction projects in the city — which itself has seen a fair number of cranes in the past few years — and at full buildout will include six new buildings with 812 residential units, 1.1 million square feet of office space, 85,000 square feet of retail space and a 196-room hotel.

0 North Station Transportation Plan gets $400k

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: B&T

The integration of transportation, services and infrastructure is paramount to a city’s success. Boston’s North Station is now benefiting by receiving $400K towards a transportation plan that will look at short and long term solutions.

Banker&Tradesman reports, “the nine-month project will encompass the West End, Bulfinch Triangle and Government Center, where nearly 8 million square feet of commercial and residential projects are expected to be completed in the next few years…The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) and the city’s transportation department are overseeing the project designed to analyze the existing network and future needs…The $400,000 is expected to cover the entire cost of the project, BRA spokesman Nicholas Martin said.”

More information is available on B&T, here.

0 Putnam nearing HQ move in Boston’s Financial District

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: BBJ

Putnam appears to be in the final throws of swapping one side of Post Office Square for another and leaving their address of 1 P.O. Square that they have had since 1981. Why move and why move now?

A number of reason play into this from how office space is used to overall economics.

According to the BBJ, “Putnam is close to signing a lease for 275,000 square feet of space at 100 Federal St. and vacating its offices a short walk away in PO Square…at One PO Square, Putnam occupies multiple floors and has lobby-level signage…The fund manager has more than 800 employees at the location, a workforce that includes its primary investment and trading operations as well as its senior executive team.”

You can read additional details on Putnam’s move on the Boston Business Journal.