0 Cambridge Street Tower Nets Close to $50m for the Commonwealth

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Wil Catlin

office space in boston at 100 Cambridge Street

Click on the image to view property details on 100 Cambridge Street in Boston

100 Cambridge Street is under agreement to be sold by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Boston Globe published details on the sale, noting “MassDevelopment has found a buyer for its ground lease at 100 Cambridge St…Mark Sternman, a spokesman for MassDevelopment, declined to disclose the total sale price or the buyer, citing the fact that the deal has not yet been completed. He said the fully occupied tower includes 565,000 square feet of office space and 35,000 square feet of retail space…MassDevelopment redeveloped the tower and reopened it in 2004. The agency regularly received more than $20 million a year in lease revenue from the tower, reporting nearly $23 million for 2013.”

100 Cambridge Street Building Specs
• RBA: 565,157 SF
• Office: 530,618
• Retail: 34,539
• Stories: 22
• Typical Floor: 25,255
• Year Built: 1965
• Year Renovated: 2004

Partial Tenant List
• Ac Ppa Holdings, Llc
• Advance Auto Detailing
• American Student Assistance-Financial
• Barron & Stadfeld, P.C.
• Bright Horizons Family Solutions
• Brooks Pharmacy
• Cannon Designmove
• Citibank Llc
• Department of Revenue
• Dewey Square Group
• Dunkin Donuts
• ECG Management Consultants, Inc
• Energy and Environmental Affairs
• Mass General Hospital Corp
• Life Solutions Group
• Masiphumelele Corporation
• Massachusetts Clean Energy Center
• Miller Wachman LLP
• Penn Mutual Life Insurance
• Prince Lobel Tye LLP
• Rite Aid

0 Cambridge Office Rents Continue to Climb

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Banker and Tradesman

The torch gets passed to Kendall Square with office rents in Cambridge skyrocketing, and one market expected to climb even higher. Kendall is the spot to be for blue chip tech companies, but why – is it the view of the Boston Skyline? No, simply put it’s Harvard and MIT that are the attraction. Companies want to attract top talent and want to associate with these prestigious institutions any way they can.

Banker and Tradesman is reporting “building owners in the lab- and office-packed Cambridge neighborhood [of Kendall Square] are quoting $80 a square foot for prime space…[while] the vacancy rate for office space in the Cambridge neighborhood is a practically air-tight 0.6 percent.”

More information on the demand trends of Kendall Square office space is available on B&T’s website.

0 45 Milk Street Office Building Leased in Full

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Wil Catlin

office space at 45 milk street in downtown boston

Credit: Boston Business Journal

Year Up is on the move to 45 Milk Street, leasing all 61,000 square feet of the downtown Boston office building.

Context on the area around Milk Street in Boston, from Wikipedia:

“Milk Street was one of Boston’s earliest highways. The name “Milk Street” was given to the street in 1708 due to the milk market at the location. One of the first post offices in Boston was located on the street in 1711, when the first regular postal routes to Maine, Plymouth and New York were established.”

Historical Context on the building, from BostonHistory.org:

“In 1906, noted architect William Gibbons Preston modified his own 1893 design for this building by extending the Milk St. facade to its present location. The allegorical figures of commerce, fidelity, industry and security are by New York artist Max Bachman. The building’s original owner, the International Trust Company, was founded in 1879 and grew to become one of the largest trust companies in New England in the early 20th century.”

Building Stats
• Type: 4 Star Office
• RBA: 68,927 SF
• Stories: 9
• Typical Floor: 7,659 SF
• Class: A
• Construction: Masonry
• Building Ht: 111′
• Year Built: 1893
• Year Renov: 1981
• Tenancy: Multi
• Owner Occup: No
• Elevators: 2
• Slab to Slab: 12′
• Sprinklers: Yes
• Property Mix: Office (61,778 SF, 89.6%), Retail (7,051 SF, 10.2%)

The Building last sold on 6/10/13 for $21,000,000.

0 Cambridge Innovation Center at 15 Years Old

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Boston.About.com

Creating a community for innovators to innovate might be one of the most valuable innovations in Boston. Yes, the deals that are brought to market through CIC are what the VC’s are looking for, but without Tom Rowe’s platform — the Cambridge Innovation Center — some of these ideas may have been kept on the shelf and not made it to market.

A Boston Globe article offers some insight on CIC’s direction for the future:

“In April, [founder, Tim Rowe] opened the CIC Boston, a 60,000-square-foot shared office space downtown, and it has been just a few weeks since he opened CIC St. Louis, his first out-of-state venture and the largest startup space that is not on the East or West coast. Rowe was keen to cozy up to the Midwestern city’s startup scene: He saw promise in Washington University’s health care colossus and was tickled when Boeing opened offices in the 120,000-square-foot space — one of its first occupants. Lately, he has been shuttling to and from the Netherlands as he looks to take CIC global.”

Additional details and photos from the CIC’s 15th anniversary, are available on the Globe’s website.

0 Fenway Center Attracts new Partner

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Wil Catlin

The construction of Fenway Center in Boston over the Pike could be getting closer. Developer John Rosenthal is looking to partner up with Gerding Edlen to get the project in the ground.

rendering of Fenway office development in Boston MA

Credit: The Boston Globe

The development of “Fenway Center calls for the construction of five buildings on 4.5 acres of land and air rights over the Turnpike. The 1.3 million-square-foot complex would contain about 550 homes, 80,000 square feet of stores and restaurants, and 167,000 square feet of office space. Multiple garages, including one straddling the Turnpike, will contain space for 1,290 cars. A revamped Yawkey commuter rail station has already opened at the edge of the property, according to the Boston Globe.

More information on the Fenway Center project is available on the Boston Globe website, here. You can also read more general information on office space in Fenway on our submarket page.

0 Looking for Coworking Office Space in Back Bay?

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Wil Catlin

shared office space in Boston's back bay

Credit: The Metro

Not ready for prime time space, but ready to get out of the garage? The Back Bay submarket appeals to a wide variety of firms for a number of reasons. Access to transportation, an educated vast work force, and a large concentration of employers in a small area all contribute to this submarket’s popularity among Boston office space users.

In an interview with the Metro, Oficio co-founder and managing partner Nima Yadollahpour notes, “because an entrepreneur needs less to run a business (a laptop and cell phone), it only makes sense to keep their overhead low, and using a shared co-working or office space is the perfect answer to that…It’s economical, efficient and communal.”

Prominent Coworking Office Space in Back Bay Boston:

Oficio
30 Newbury St. 3rd Floor
or
129 Newbury St. 4th Floor

Idea Space
867 Boylston St., 5th Floor

LearnLaunch
31 St James Ave. #920

Unfamiliar with the area? Read our submarket page to learn more about Back Bay Office Space.

0 Inventive Labs: Incubator space for Entrepreneurs

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Credit: InventiveLabs

Do you follow a less traditional path? Sitting in a cube not your thing after getting a four year degree? Inventive Labs is like the co-working space for the entrepreneur.

The BBJ notes, “InventiveLabs leases a 10,000 square-foot space in an old brick building in the up-and-coming town of Amesbury, about 30 miles north of Boston…With two fully stocked kitchens, three custom work labs, a lounge area, special rooms designated for sleep and study, along with a gaming room and a large open space (which will be the incubator once it gets up and running), one could practically live at the facility, which is accessible around the clock.”

More information on InventiveLabs is available on the company’s website, or you can read the Boston Business Journal article.

0 Bustling Office Demand Limits Lab Space in Boston, Cambridge

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Wil Catlin

lab space at 640 Memorial Drive in Cambridge

Credit: capitalprojects.mit.edu

Lab space is nearly impossible to find in Cambridge and Boston. Companies that are looking to bring their concept to market can capitalize on brain tank of talent can find space within the greater East Cambridge market. Some landlords like Beacon Capital are considering converting traditional office floors to lab space to accommodate the market demand.

According to a Boston Globe report, “an additional 1.9 million square feet of lab space was under construction last quarter that will grow the Greater Boston lab market by more than 10 percent, according to Transwestern’s figures. Most of that space is near Kendall Square in Cambridge, and is scheduled to be finished in 2015 and 2016.”

You can read more information on the lab space market in Cambridge and Boston on the Boston Globe’s website.

0 Entrepreneurial Demand at MIT Outgrows Space

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Credit: The Boston Herald

Our up and coming innovators are being told to wait at MIT! The demand for some of the innovative classes is outpacing the school’s ability to service students along with listing seats for alums looking to join the MIT Innovation Lab. This is a sign that our economy still has a long runway ahead of innovative ideas from some of our creative thinking individuals.

From the Boston Herald:

“We’re bursting at the seams,” said Vladimir Bulovic, associate dean for innovation in the School of Engineering and co-author of the preliminary report. “There is a tremendous drive by students for more and more entrepreneurial activity.”

“[A report commissioned by the university] recommends a number of solutions, including a co-working space for recent MIT graduates, the construction of two “Innovation Hubs” on campus, and the creation of the Laboratory for Innovation Science and Policy, a department that would study the innovation process and how to foster it.”

0 Boston Mulls Visible Corporate Logos on Buildings

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Credit: NBR

Where should corporate branding start and stop? We have seen the T embrace corporate visibility, moving throughout the city, but do you want to see it on the top of all Boston Buildings? I would be in favor of branding on a case-by-case basis, but not across the board.

Banker & Tradesman reports, “financial services giant State Street Corp. was allowed to hang a high-profile shingle atop its 36-story One Lincoln St. headquarters in 2003 and its One Channel Center office complex that opened this past June in South Boston. So, too, was prized biotech recruit Vertex Pharmaceuticals after it moved from Cambridge to anchor Boston’s Innovation District in 2013, and Converse Inc. as it nears completion of its new headquarters at Lovejoy Wharf.”

B&T also includes a quote from Mayor Walsh, offering his perspective on Boston buildings brandishing corporate logos: “if we’re going to have companies invest significant numbers of people in a particular area and take a large portion of the building, I have no problem with them putting a name on a side of the building.”