Category Archives: Boston Commercial Development

0 Law firm to move out of One Post Office Square, citing renovation work

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The biggest isn’t always the best.  Fortunately, Boston is chock-full of great work space. What strategies are you solving for & how can we help?

Law firm to move out of One Post Office Square, citing renovation work

One Post Office Square in Boston.
W. MARC BERNSAU

By   – Law and Money Reporter, Boston Business Journal 

Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP plans to move its Boston office to One Financial Center next year, in part to avoid the disruption caused by construction in its current home at One Post Office Square, according to its local managing partner.

The South Carolina-based law firm is taking approximately 43,000 square feet on the 35th and 36th floors of One Financial, the office tower across Atlantic Avenue from South Station, said Peter Haley, the firm’s leader in Boston.

It’s about the same amount of space that it currently occupies at One Post Office Square, where it’s been for most of the decade-plus it’s been in the Boston market. But the Post Office Square building is undergoing a major renovation, including a new-look glass exterior, a large-scale interior makeover, and a significant expansion of rentable space. The project is being co-developed by JLL and Anchorline Partners.

According to Haley, had Nelson Mullins stayed in Post Office Square, it would have needed to move at least once, and perhaps twice, within the building over the short term to accommodate the makeover. The firm’s leaders were wary of that level of disruption. JLL “was great” about trying to find a solution, but the firm “couldn’t quite find something that was right for us,” Haley said.

Nelson Mullins expects to move into One Financial in 2020, potentially in August. Haley anticipates the new space will have about 65 offices, with a more efficient, glass-filled floor plan compared to its current location.

The law firm’s local headcount has changed significantly in recent years. In early 2015, it had 60 attorneys in Boston, but by the next year that figure had dropped to 35 after teams of attorneys left for K&L Gates LLP and LeClairRyan PC.

Since then, however, Haley and the firm’s leadership have been aggressive about wooing partners from other Boston law offices. Its local headcount is back up to 53, according to Haley. The new recruits hail from a variety of firms and practice areas: This year alone, its additions include intellectual property attorneys from Pepper Hamilton LLP and Mintz and a litigator from State Street Corp.

“We’ve had a nice ability to attract lawyers from around the city,” Haley said.

That level of growth is reflected in the firm’s recent financials. In 2014, its $298 million in revenue put it outside the 100 highest-grossing law firms in the U.S., according to American Lawyer Media data. In 2018, it grossed more than $400 million across its more than 20 offices, earning it a ranking as No. 87 in the country.

The new address and new names aren’t the only changes coming to Nelson Mullins. Later this month, Haley is stepping down as office managing partner in favor of his colleague, Brian Moore. Haley has been the office’s leader since 2013 and felt a change in leadership would be good for the future of the firm. He plans to return to his practice full-time, although he will hold onto some managerial responsibilities at the firmwide level.

“The turnover’s very helpful in terms of developing and building leadership within the office,” he said. “Just having one person staying there for 10 or 15 years, I think you miss out on opportunities to build future leaders.”

0 Empty store space in Downtown Crossing may become offices

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Does the Amazon effect play into retail vacancy in Boston?  We, in short yes.  How we shop and what we shop for online has changed and will continue to do so.  Retail is still vibrant and strong, but not all retail spaces are created equal.  Some historical retails spaces are better suited for office which in part has to do their size and proximity to public transit.

An example of this transformation is the Cambridge Side Galleria Mall in the East Cambridge.  The red hot Kendal office and lab market will continue to gobble up under performing assets.

An empty storefront near 560 Washington St.

By Tim Logan GLOBE STAFF  APRIL 12, 2019

One of the biggest retail spaces in Downtown Crossing may soon become home to offices.

The Boston Planning & Development Agency on Thursday approved plans by the owner of Lafayette City Center to convert much of its long-empty ground floor into office space, perhaps to house the state agency that handles workers’ compensation claims.

The move by veteran Boston developers The Abbey Group highlights the soft market for large-format retailers as they face mounting online competition. The change also has something to do with the particular quirks of the building, which was built in the 1980s as the inward-facing Lafayette Place Mall before being repositioned as storefronts with office space above.

The proposed change also is raising concerns in some quarters about a block and a half of Washington Street in the busy shopping district being converted to office space.

Much of the building’s ground floor — about 75,000 square feet — has been empty for at least 15 years. The last sizable tenant, an Eddie Bauer outlet store, closed in early 2016. Abbey and its brokers have struggled to fill the space. Among other challenges, the first floor is as much as 7 feet higher than street level in places — a design quirk of the old indoor mall and its underground garage.

“We think of ourselves as creative developers who apply innovative thinking to problems like this,” Abbey chief operating officer David Epstein said. “It simply isn’t feasible” to use the space for retail, he said.

 

But Abbey has leased more than 500,000 square feet of office space on the floors above street level, mostly to tech companies. When the state began looking for 33,700 square feet to house its Division of Industrial Accidents — which needs to move out of the Government Center Garage ahead of a redevelopment there — Abbey offered up the ground floor.

A spokesman for the state’s real estate agency said it received five proposals for the office, including Lafayette Center. A final decision has not been made, he said.

Workers’ compensation courtrooms may not be the sort of retail and restaurant Downtown Crossing is known for, but it fits with other legal offices around the neighborhood, said Rosemarie Sansone, president of the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District.

“This place has been empty for 20 years,” she said. “They found an unusual and interesting use for it. This is all good.”

Still, the shift comes as several key locations sit empty along Washington Street, from Lafayette Center to the long-shuttered Barnes & Noble (which is now being renovated by a new owner) to a cluster of empty storefronts at Washington and Bromfield streets that have been largely dark since plans to build a skyscraper there stalled in 2016.

Sansone acknowledged the empty buildings but also noted that several restaurants and stores have opened in and around Downtown Crossing in recent years. Building owners and the BID, she said, are aiming to bring in more retailers to cater to residents and workers who fill nearby office towers, including a day care center, pet stores, and more home goods stores. She also said Trader Joe’s is considering opening a grocery store in the neighborhood, though a Trader Joe’s spokeswoman would not confirm that.

 

Some landlords on Washington Street, Sansone said, are being patient, waiting for the right tenant.

“There have been some deliberate attempts to make sure that whatever comes is going to be successful, that it’s what people want,” she said.

One BPDA board member Thursday asked Epstein about the wisdom of leaving retail space like Lafayette Center vacant for years, especially given the effect on foot traffic for neighboring businesses.

“It’s a form of job destruction,” Carol Downs said. “I don’t really understand why this space was let to stay empty for so long.”

Epstein said the market has shifted away from the larger-format retailers it originally envisioned would lease at Lafayette City Center, and the technical challenges of opening in the building were too great for smaller stores. Filling two-thirds of the long empty storefront with office workers will bring foot traffic and, he hopes, will make it easier to rent the rest of the vacant space.

“We’re excited about the prospect,” Epstein said.

Tim Logan can be reached at tim.logan@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @bytimlogan.

0 Boston Takes 3rd on List of Largest Office Pipelines in the Northeast

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145 Broadway Street in Boston

Credit: cpexecutive

The Boston office market continues to show strong development, with 4.5 million square feet of construction underway. Rent growth and job growth have also put Boston on the leader board.

Here’s what CPexecutive had to say on the Boston office pipeline:

A strong market dominated by its well-performing technology and life science sectors, Boston recorded a robust job and population growth—larger than Los Angeles or San Francisco. The market conditions bolstered construction activity, resulting in more than 4.5 million square feet of office space now underway. Completions stayed under the 3 million-square-foot mark in 2015 and 2016 and dropped significantly in 2017, when only 1.6 million square feet of office space were delivered.

The largest office development scheduled to come online is the Akamai Global Headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. The 19-story property will bring 453,768 square feet of office space to the market and will be located at 145 Broadway, in the heart of the city’s Kendall Square neighborhood. Boston Properties signed a 15-year lease with Akamai, the building’s sole tenant.

The full list of the ‘Largest Office Pipelines in the Northeast’ is available, here.

0 Boston Office Building Shadows Draws Consternation

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Boston residential building casts shadows

Credit: NYTimes

Should it be built or not? Will it cast a deep shadow? Is too much being made of this issue or are not enough people rallying behind the drive to maintain a view of the sky?

From the New York Times:

Boston is riding the crest of what city officials say is the biggest building boom in its history, with cranes lifting glassy towers into place and raising the city’s unassuming profile. The surge of construction is also plunging some of its most cherished sites into deepening shadow, testing state laws that have long balanced economic development with protection of sunlight and open space.

The concern is not merely about preserving a glimpse of sky in the increasingly vertical downtown or about the risks of darkness to plants, historic buildings and even humans. It is also about whether the city is going down a road of no return by trading away, one piece at a time, its intangible assets, like sunlight on its signature parks and public access to its gleaming waterfront.

0 Darkness Looms over Winthrop Square Tower Project

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The shadows that will be cast from Millennium Partners proposed Winthrop Square project might darken this development. Who knew, or who should have known, that shadow effect on the Common and Public Garden existed?

Winthrop Square tower casts shadows

Credit: Boston Globe

From the Boston Globe:

Millennium’s proposal, according to the developer’s analysis, would be out of compliance on average about 36 minutes a day over the course of a year on the Common and on average about five minutes a day over the course of a year on the Garden.

“You can correct for water with irrigation. You can correct for nutrients with fertilizer,” said Liz Vizza, executive director of the Friends of the Public Garden. “You cannot correct when you lose light.”