0 Boston Office Vacancies Reach 14-year low

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: wbjournal

The Boston Office market continues to price upward while pushing vacancies to levels not seen since 2001.

WBjournal reported on a study conducted by Transwestern, a commercial real estate management firm, citing “in the fourth quarter, the region’s office market closed the year at a 12.8-percent vacancy rate. For the year, 3.6 million square feet of office space was absorbed, marking the area’s seventh consecutive quarter of positive absorption.”

The WBjournal offers an additional details on Boston’s vacancy rate.

0 Tech Initiatives Set for Boston

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: BBJ

Looking to use your smartphone to pay for parking in Boston? Thank the Mayor, who pushed a new app out the doors of city hall and launched in as a pilot in Back Bay. It was one of the Mayor’s six technology-centric initiatives announced recently. The full six tech initiatives are the following:

1.    Boston drivers can now feed their meters with a mobile app.
2.    Boston’s new partnership with SAP.
3.    The creation of “StartHub.”
4.    Leveraging big data.
5.    The unveiling of a “startup czar” position.
6.    New 3-1-1 upgrades.

You can read more on each of Mayor Walsh’s tech initiatives for Boston on the BizJournals website.

0 Downtown Boston Office Market Expanding Steadily

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: B&T

Downtown Boston is the largest concentration North of New York City and is in the midst of strong rent growth across the Class A and B segments. Today’s technology and creative services companies are looking for easy access to public transportation combined with an open floor plan.

From Banker & Tradesman:

For the third straight year in 2014, the Greater Boston office market recorded more than 2 million square feet of positive absorption, in a steady expansion that boosted occupancy rates at properties ranging from suburban office parks to converted warehouses and downtown high-rises.

“There’s more office product than ever and it’s getting filled in a much more dense way than ever before,” said Brendan Carroll, vice president of research for Avison Young. “If you’re wondering why the T seems more packed, or why you can’t get a cab to take you across the (Fort Point) Channel, that seems to be the reason.”

0 Back Bay Project Progressing

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Wil Catlin

rendering of proposed renovations at Back Bay station in Boston

Rendering courtesy of the Boston Globe

Boylston Street in Back Bay is closer to adding a new address for a $330 million mixed use project. This is known as Parcel 13, which is on the North East side of Mass. Ave. & Boylston Street.

From The Boston Globe:

Peebles Corp. was chosen over two rival bidders to develop Parcel 13, a rectangle of state-owned air rights at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street that stretches over the Massachusetts Turnpike. Peebles now needs to win both state and city approvals to move ahead with the project…The proposed development, designed by Handel Architects of New York and about a block long, would include a 156-room hotel, 88 condominiums, 138 parking spaces, community areas, and 26,000 square feet of retail space. The building’s footprint would stretch from Mass. Ave. to Dillon’s Restaurant & Bar on Boylston Street and would feature a distinctive squiggle shape.

0 Key Boston Office Developments in 2014

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Bisnow

Our city continues to grow and change as evident by the following six projects in 2014. Bisnow selected its six transformative developments from 2014, noting “projects underway in 2014 brought amazing change, reviving tired districts and bringing new ones into the heart of the metro area.” It’s standouts are the following:

• Vertex Pharmaceuticals
• VanNess
• Troy Boston
• New Balance in Brighton Landing
• One Dalton
• Partners Healthcare

0 Boston Office Rents Stay Among Country’s Highest in 2015

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Boston Business Journal

Boston Office rents are some of the most expensive nationally and expected to continue upward during 2015. Vacancy in the city has continued downward with value options within the low rise Class A and Class B in the Financial District.

“The vacancy rate in Boston at the end of the fourth quarter was 13.4 percent, the seventh-lowest rate in the country among the roughly 75 markets Reis examined…The national average was 16.7 percent. Average Boston rents rose 0.2 percentage points during the fourth quarter. Most of the cities saw a small decline. Average rent in Boston at the end of the fourth quarter was $32.42 per square foot — fourth highest in the country,” according to stats presented on the Boston Business Journal.

The full BBJ article can be found, here.

0 Green Line Extension Project Gets Boost

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: GreenlineExtension.eot.state.ma

Boston is home to the old subway in the county, the Green Line, which will be extended by 4.7 miles from Lechmere Station to Somerville and Medford. This opened at the end of the 19th century and was built to allow ordinary street cars to operate below ground which is dramatically different than subways of today.

The busiest Green Line stop is Park Street station, which is the intersection of the Green, Orange and Red Lines in the heart of Downtown Crossing.

Banker & Tradesman recently reported that the “U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx yesterday joined Gov. Deval Patrick and other Bay State officials to formally announce a $996 million federal grant to extend Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line light rail service from East Cambridge to Somerville and Medford…The Federal Transit Authority announced its intention to provide nearly $1 billion for the $2.3 billion project in December. State funds will cover the remaining cost.”

You can read the full article on B&T.

0 Technology is Transforming Boston Commercial Real Estate

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: analyticsweek.com

The commercial real estate industry has truly benefited from technology. I entered the industry in 2002 and from then to now is dramatically different; today I can walk down the street, open my tablet and find out what space on what floor is available in any commercial building. This was unheard of 5 years ago and only gets better with version updates of various apps. Not to mention the infusion of data, real-time analytics, and crowdfunding.

The BBJ notes “while data can’t predict the future just yet, big data can tell us the probability of future decisions, which can lead to actionable decision-making.” The article also mentions the benefit to “accredited and non-accredited investors, through a multitude of platforms, have the ability to invest in early-stage companies. What this means for commercial real estate is that everyone’s customer base broadens as fractional “ownership” increases. It also results in more capital outlets and providers for a more competitive landscape.”

You can read the full Boston Business Journal article on its website.

0 Cambridge Aims to Make Labs Greener

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: The Boston Herald

How green is your Cambridge lab space? The City of Cambridge is trying to make lab space as green as possible.

“A city task force has been meeting for nearly a year to come up with a way for new buildings in Cambridge to be “net zero” to significantly reduce emissions. But some of the most energy-intensive buildings in Cambridge are biotech labs, which require a significant amount of specialized infrastructure, including high-powered ventilation systems to deal with any potentially hazardous gases,” the Boston Herald reports.

The Herald article offers a detailed look at the steps required — and planned — for Cambridge buildings to produce “zero emissions.”

0 Will Boston Restore Northern Avenue Bridge?

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Wil Catlin

We need to continue to invest in our cities infrastructure to ensure we can service both the day time and bedtime communities. Simply put, without access people will go elsewhere.

Credit: Boston Globe

The Boston Globe offered this image:

the sound you just heard was the unmistakable sloshing of preservationists paddling up Fort Point Channel coming to the rescue of a bridge that has long served as a historical gateway between the Financial District and the South Boston Waterfront. We may never get the tens of millions of dollars needed to restore the bridge, but at least we had fun dreaming about it.