0 129 Tremont Street Lands New Capital One 360 Café

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Credit: BostonSF.com

A bank becomes a coffee shop. Well, I walked into this establishment for a quick meeting and I must admit, it was pretty cool. I got a cup of coffee and a quick bite to eat and I sat down to watch the comings and goings of the operation. In the 20 minutes I was there I noticed moderate coffee customers, but I didn’t notice any bank customers. Not sure why, but I sure this will become the rage as more of us are looking for service and convenience. After all, who would have thought 10 years ago that a bank would open in a supermarket and have office hours on Sundays.

An article on BostonSF.com notes additional details of the new establishment at 129 Tremont St.:

The café features a full service coffee bar, LCD video walls incorporated into an all glass façade, and a warm and inviting ambiance. Venetian plaster, faux brick walls and a wood slat ceiling define the space. Polished concrete floors are intricately inlaid with an elliptical reclaimed wood floor product. The café offers music and Wi-Fi to customers, as well as information on Capital One services via multiple LCD displays throughout the space. All of this while hiding the inner workings of a fully functioning café in the background.

0 Boston Waterfront: $20M Upgrade Proposed

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Bisnow.com

This is terrific news and should be implemented immediately. Public access to our natural beauty is imperative to the City’s continued growth in the years to come. Not too far back, the suppression of the Central Artery bridged many areas of our city and created the Greenway.

From Bisnow:

“The City’s new proposal to spend $20M to upgrade 40 acres along the waterfront from the North End to Fort Point with open space, cultural attractions, and entertainment (fingers crossed for Ferris wheel) will elevate the rapidly changing district, BRA deputy director for waterfront planning Richard McGuiness tells Bisnow. The aim: upgrade the border of “our greatest natural resource: Boston Harbor.”

The complete Bisnow article is available on its website, here

0 Boston Realty Advisors Exclusively Retained to Lease 360 Newbury St. in Back Bay

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Back bay commercial space at 360 Newbury St. in Boston

360 Newbury Street

Looking for cool creative office space at the gateway to Boston? Check out 360 Newbury St. in Boston’s Back Bay.

From BostonSF.com:

Boston Realty Advisors (BRA) announced that it has been exclusively retained to lease 360 Newbury Street, offering 40,640 square feet over three levels. In addition to excellent Mass Pike visibility and a unique architectural dynamic – penned by famed architect Frank Gehry — this iconic stalwart of the Boston skyline maintains flexibility for tenants with a variety of square footage requirements. 360 Newbury Street presents an unsurpassed opportunity in the market. Commanding an unrivaled presence in the Back Bay.

360 Newbury Street Property Brochure

360 Newbury Street Floor Plan

0 Boston Emerges as State’s Tech Startup Hub

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Has Boston really become the state’s capital for startups? Well yes. This came to be for two primary reasons; public access and cost of real estate. Downtown Crossing, DTX, is serviced by the T’s Red, Green Orange and Blue lines. Combined with the Silver Line and a short walk from South Station it offers employers a great recruiting tool as they vie for new talent.

Economics. Plain and simple. DTX is the last real value play within the Class B market and is what most startups are seeking. Opportunities can still be achieved with in the upper $20’s PSF while most buildings are pricing in the low to mid $30’S PSF.

Click to view or download as a high resolution pdf

The Boston Globe’s niche online business publication, betaboston.com, notes the following:

Last year…Boston accomplished a previously unheard of feat in the tech world by having more venture capital deals than Cambridge — for years the center of gravity of the startup scene in Massachusetts. And a large number of those deals went to companies located outside the Innovation District, in neighboring business zones such as the Financial and Leather districts and Downtown Crossing.

0 Boston Office Market Maintains Strong Results for Landlords

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Wil Catlin

155 Federal Street

The Boston Office market continues to produce strong results for landlords. The low rise Class A and Class B market in the Financial District continue to offer a value option to prospective tenants.

According to news site, news.gnom.es, “First quarter 2014 marked Greater Boston’s fourth consecutive quarter of positive absorption. The market also posted its highest four-quarter positive absorption total since 2007, with 3.6 million square feet absorbed from second quarter 2013 through first quarter 2014.”

The article quotes 542,000 SF of positive adsorption in Boston in the First Quarter. You can read the full article, here.

0 Shared Office Space is Here to Stay

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Credit: The Boston Globe

Shared office space is here to stay. Think about it like “Just in Time Inventory,” allowing now companies to focus on the company while having all the amenities of much larger corporations. In short, you pay for flexibility, but that combined with some great peer networking is exactly what clients are looking for.

The Boston Globe defined the shared office space ‘trend’ in a recent article:

“a new kind of office is popping up in neighborhoods from Newton to Chelsea to Boston’s Leather District: communal spaces where you can rent a desk or three on a month-to-month basis, and mingle with other businesspeople around the kitchen’s beer tap at the end of the day. (Unlimited brewskis — or cups of coffee — are included in the rent.)”

0 Boston Seaport Attracts Tech and Biotech Start-ups

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Wil Catlin

World Trade Center East, 2 Seaport Lane

Boston continues to expand into the Seaport. The once-famed $7-per-day-dirt parking lots have been replaced with corporate office space for the biotech industry, law firms, financial services and newly funded technology companies. Did this happen overnight? Well, no. The Ted Williams Tunnel to the airport, and onramp to Mass Turnpike East and West fostered accessibility and spurred new opportunity. That level of infrastructure was the catalyst of for our current development cycle, combined with demand for residential and office development.

The Boston Globe states:

“The new face of Boston’s Seaport is the old face of the city’s downtown. The lawyers and accountants who are financing the waterfront construction boom are abandoning Boston’s historic commercial center for something newer and more exciting. This exodus is opening up cheaper commercial space for creative firms and tech companies…Boston’s downtown and its waterfront are slowly swapping identities.”

More information on the Seaport’s transition is provided in the Boston Globe’s full article.

Alternatively, you can view our listings for currently available office space in the Seaport.

0 7-9 Channel Center in Seaport Slated for Renovation

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Boston Business Journal

Berkley Investments is bullish on the Seaport with their soon-to-be-renovated 7-story, 10K SF floor plate building. This building is targeting funded and stabilized technology companies.

According to the Boston Business Journal, Berkeley is rehabilitating “9 Channel Center, a 7-story office and retail building totaling 77,000 square feet in the growing Seaport neighborhood. The interior and exterior rehab will include the installation of new building systems and the addition of as much as 4,000 square feet of street-level retail. The building’s brick and beam architecture will be restored. The design also calls for a new atrium lobby, retail storefronts and a roof deck. The building’s floor plates will span approximately 10,000 square feet.”

Details on the design and tenant plans for 7-9 Channel Center are included in the BBJ article: office rehab in Seaport.

0 Boston Real Estate: High Demand for Office and Lab Space

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Two Cambridge Place

Boston continues to shine nationally due to our healthcare, education, finance, biotech and high-tech industries. Blackstone, owners of Equity Office are shopping their remaining Class A office portfolio to perhaps one buyer, which will push office rent even higher as the new ownership justifies their investment.

Here are some relevant projections for the Boston office market, from nerej.com:

A few key neighborhoods and areas will see particularly high levels of growth this year. Although major areas like the Back Bay and the Financial District continue to provide the largest amount of market space, growth and many new lease transactions will be seen in other areas, which provide more opportunities for company relocation and for out-of-town businesses to take root…Kendall Sq. in Cambridge is currently red hot, both for offices and for lab space in medicine, high-tech, and more. In particular, Google is coming in to Kendall Sq. and will take up 300,000 s/f of office space. Google will leave its own large footprint, while making the area even more attractive for other tech companies.

0 Why are they leaving Waltham for Boston and Cambridge?

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Wil Catlin

Kendall Square commuters rely on the T to get to work in Cambridge, Ma

Credit: MIT

Why are the V.C. firms leaving Waltham for Boston? Is it traffic and higher priced rents? No, the customer is there. Downtown Crossing (DTX) has evolved to being a hot bed of new technology companies that wanted a few simple items. Rents; looking for an affordable option, DTX has Class B rents ranging from the mid to upper $20’s to the mid to upper $30’s PSF. The swing in price is due the specific location, the build out of the space and the condition of the overall building. In addition some buildings have a staffed lobby, while other operate on a key FOB system.

Location; emerging companies are competing for a hot commodity, talented staff. Location becomes a huge factor what that young employee doesn’t own a car and relies on the T to get them around. DTX is uniquely positioned at the Red, Green, Blue and Orange lines.

So, that is why the V.C. firms are moving back to the city to pay Class A rents that can start in the upper $40’s PSF and beyond?

The latest Venture firm to vacate Waltham for Boston or Cambridge? North Bridge Venture Partners.

From betaboston.com:

North Bridge Venture Partners, based in Waltham, is planning to move to Boston or Cambridge some time later this year, said general partner Michael Skok. “Our leanings are toward the Innovation District or Downtown, mostly based on entrepreneurs saying it,” Skok said.

The Betaboston.com article on North Bridge Venture Partners is available in full, here.