Author Archives: Wil Catlin

0 Kendall Square to Copley Move for Notable Cambridge Firms

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4 Copley Place

Credit: Wayfair

The pilgrimage to Boston continues as Cambridge tightens; InsightSquared and Architectural Resources will soon call Back Bay home.

The BBJ notes, “Business analytics firm InsightSquared, which just last spring moved into expanded office spaces at 160 Second St., this September will move to a 45,000-square-foot office at 4 Copley Place. The office spans two floors and is almost triple the size of Insight Squared’s 16,000-square-foot Kendall Square location…The expansion is driven by InsightSquared’s growing customer count and revenue, a company representative said. The office will also accommodate the firm’s growing employee base, which has doubled to more than 150 in the past year.”

You can real the full Boston Business Journal report on its website, here.

Relevant Available Real Estate in Boston and Cambridge
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0 Boston Firefighters to Receive Boost of Real-time Data on Calls

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real time map of greater Boston and surrounding areas

Credit: Here.com

Boston Fire Fighters will be better equipped when responding to a call.  Our first responders will now be equipped with information from a variety of city departments, including Inspectional Services and Permitting. Streaming data will provide an array of relevant data to the fire truck while on route to a call; this will hopefully mitigate hazards along the way, and keep the fire fighters up-to-date on all necessary info related to the call.

From the Boston Herald:

“The more tools we can get in the hands of a firefighter, the more knowledge they have upon entering a fire, the better off we are,” said Boston Fire Commissioner Joseph E. Finn. “When you’re in that high-stakes environment, every second counts and every decision matters.”

Fire trucks will soon be outfitted with what the city calls “building intelligence” software that taps into records and data from other city departments, including Inspectional Services and Permitting. That will let firefighters know the building’s floor plan, whether it has sprinklers and potential hazards in the building…Before entering a building, firefighters will also have access to information about whether the structure has a history of code violations, including illegal apartments.

0 New Boston Skyscrapers will Make — or Brake — the Skyline

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Copley square office buildings in Boston

Credit: Boston Globe

The greater Boston audience has an opinion about just about anything, including our skyline. This poses a challenge to Boston’s strongest developers and architects to reshape our city into something elegant, energizing, and functional.

From the Boston Globe:

No matter how elegantly they may be paved or planted, urban plazas are boring, windy, and little used, especially in weather like ours. The Prudential, back before its Arctic plazas were filled in with shopping arcades, was a good example. The Federal Reserve Bank, next to South Station, is another. It’s a handsome, eloquent Diva tower behind a plaza that has the charm of a recently abandoned battlefield.

As far as the public is concerned, cities aren’t made of buildings and plazas, anyway. Cities are made of streets and parks. From the point of view of urban design, the buildings are there to shape those public spaces and feed them with energy.

0 Kendall Square Office Space gets Remade

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200 Sidney st. cambridge ma

Credit: BBJ

Changes are on the move for East Cambridge. Vertex’s old HQ in Kendall Square is poised to be remade.

From the Boston Globe:

The deal will enable Biomed to begin renovating the buildings. They include two lab and office buildings at 200 Sidney St. and 40 Erie St., with a total of 239,000 square feet, that were leased to Vertex through this December, and another 21,000 square feet at 21 Erie St. that was leased to Vertex through May 2017.

Biomed said it will update the buildings’ entrances and lobbies, and add indoor and outdoor collaboration spaces and fitness centers. The work will begin immediately and the sites should be ready to be leased to new tenants starting in September, the developer said.

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0 Can the Supply of Office Space in Boston Keep up with Demand?

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office buildings in boston on the waterfront

Credit: Banker&Tradesman

The Boston market will continue to grow through 2018.  How will this affect office pricing in the years to come?

From Banker&Tradesman:

“The challenge you have in the city of Boston is: do we create too much supply and get to a point where we’re not seeing rent growth?” said Mitchell Roschelle, PwC’s national practice head of real estate advisory. “We heard this quarter in the survey a little bit of concern on the part of some investors about the new supply to the market. How that supply performs is going to dictate whether we see investors flooding the market with capital.”

The tenant retention rate was 68 percent in the first quarter with landlords offering an average of five months of free rent, according to the survey. Cap rates averaged 5.7 percent in the Boston central business district and 7.2 percent in the suburbs. Boston is one of 32 U.S. office markets expected to remain in expansion phase in 2015, the PwC report said, with employment generating demand for office space outpacing new supply…San Francisco, which shares many of Boston’s market characteristics, is expected to contract in 2015 and enter a recession mode with negative rental growth in 2017.

0 Updates Coming to Boston’s Financial District

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rendering of congress street redevelopment

Credit: Bizjournals.com

More new retail, office and hotel options are coming to the Boston Financial District, centered around the intersection of State Street and Congress Street.

According to the BBJ, the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s agenda for its Thursday City Hall meeting includes the following projects:

  • A public hearing to discuss a proposed 23-story, 346-room“micro hotel which is designed to meet the changing needs/habits of today’s urban travelers” at 240 Tremont St. in the Theater District.
  • A public hearing to discuss Simon Property Group’s (NYSE: SPG)residential and retail expansion projectat 5 Copley Place, a proposed 52-story tower that includes 542 units of residential space spanning 680,000 square feet, a 54,000-square-foot addition to Neiman Marcus and a 60,000-square-foot addition of restaurant and retail space.
  • Scheduling a public hearing about Related Beal’s Congress Square project.
  • Approving and extending the Simmons College institutional master plan in the Fenway neighborhood.

 

0 Tower Height Contended on Boston Harbor Garage Site

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rendering of the proposed towers at Boston Harbor

Credit: Boston Globe

The Boston Waterfront will continue to change and be the gateway to our city.  City Hall has moved to the positive side, but it appears not all the abutters are for the size of the Harbor Garage site.

From the Boston Globe:

Boston Redevelopment Authority officials said they plan to recommend Wednesday that a skyscraper on the site of the Boston Harbor Garage be allowed to reach up to 600 feet. That would essentially match the taller of the two buildings Chiofaro has proposed for the property and would be far taller than any other neighboring building overlooking the harbor.

But Chiofaro would not get everything he wants: City officials will propose to limit development at the garage site to 900,000 square feet. The two-building complex proposed by Chiofaro last year would total 1.3 million square feet, with a mix of offices, residential units, and other uses…Chiofaro declined to comment, so it’s unclear whether the smaller building area would limit the developer to one tower instead of two.

0 Boston Park Plaza Hotel Gets Modernized

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back bay timelapse

Credit: Boston Park Plaza Hotel

A Back Bay building at 50 Park Plaza has just gone through a $100M upgrade.  The 90 year old Boston Park Plaza Hotel has been brought up to today’s standards.

Patch.com lists out the on-site upgrades, including the following:

•    Replacement of the hotel’s roof, exterior facade and sidewalk surrounds
•    Creation of 5,500 square feet of prime retail space
•    Installation of a state-of-the-art HVAC system
•    The addition of STRIP by Strega, an all-new 5,700 square foot high-energy steakhouse concept by Boston-based restaurateur Nick Varano
•    The addition of Off The Common, the Boston Park Plaza’s new restaurant and lounge
•    Additional guest services include complimentary use of the brand new David Barton Gym fitness center, FedEx Office Print & Ship Center, and 50,480 square-feet of exceptional meeting space

0 Boston Waterfront Redevelopment Planned for Lewis Wharf

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rendering of Lewis Wharf redevelopment

Credit: Boston Business Journal

Lewis Wharf is looking to make a splash in the Boston waterfront with their redevelopment.

From the BBJ:

Boston-based real estate firm JW Capital Partners has proposed redeveloping and rehabilitating a 225-space parking lot on Lewis Wharf, a waterfront site in the the city’s North End neighborhood…The centerpiece of the proposed development is a 300-room luxury hotel surrounded by 2.4 acres of public outdoor space along the waterfront, along with an updated Harborwalk area. The site would also host the Boston Sailing Center and include a below-grade 380-space parking garage to replace the above-ground parking garage at 28 Atlantic Ave.

0 Indoor Farmers’ Market in Boston will Open July 30th

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Government Center and North Station have a new amenity: Boston Public Market, a year-round, 28,000-square-foot indoor farmers’ market.  The market will consist of 35 different providers with operational hours from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

Boston Public Market

Credit: Boston Business Journal

From Bizjournals.com:

The 28,000-square-foot non-profit market at 100 Hanover St. — above the Haymarket MBTA station — will house over 35 farmers, fishermen, and food producers from Massachusetts and throughout New England, selling items such as farm fresh produce; meat and poultry; eggs; milk and cheese; fish and shellfish; bread and baked goods; flowers; and an assortment of specialty and prepared foods…The Boston Public Market is a public-private partnership made possible with the support of Massachusetts and the commitment of over $9 million in private philanthropy from various donors.