0 The Landmark Building at 160 Federal St. Sold to Beacon Capital

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: BBJ

Beacon Capital continues to add to their portfolio by purchasing 160 Federal Street with is located at the corner of Federal St. and High St.

According to the BBJ, “the deal for the 351,000-square-foot, 24-story Landmark Building “was financed with a $96.2 million mortgage from Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., a separate Suffolk County record shows. The mortgage was executed April 10…Taurus bought 160 Federal St. in April 2007 for $101.4 million, Suffolk County records show.”

Additional details are available on the Bizjournals.com.

0 115 Winthrop Square Considered for Boston’s Second-Tallest Building

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Banker&Tradesman

The Boston skyline is poised to see significant change of the next five years as projects that are under construction come online. 115 Winthrop Square is getting attention and might be home to Boston’s second tallest building if O’Brien has anything to do with it.

According to Banker&Tradesman, “developer Thomas O’Brien of Boston-based HYM Investments is proposing a 69-story, 780-foot-tall residential tower that would become the city’s second-tallest building, just 10 feet shy of the Hancock Tower…O’Brien was one of eight developers who submitted proposals to build a skyscraper in the Financial District. The Boston Redevelopment Authority sought proposals for a one-acre parcel currently occupied by the municipal garage at 115 Winthrop Square. O’Brien’s plan calls for a substantial redevelopment of the square, including a new Boston public school and a relocated St. Anthony Shrine, friary and ministry center. Under the O’Brien proposal, the church properties and school would be built on the former garage site and a residential tower with 11,000-square-foot floor plates would be built on the former shrine property.”

The HYM Investment Group can be seen, here.

0 Epstein’s Instructive Strategy for Transforming Downtown Boston

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: bisnow

Bob Epstein can teach us a few things about remaking duds into destinations. Lafayette Center was that dud that wasn’t getting any airtime from prospective tenants, despite location, large floor plates and infrastructure.

“At Lafayette City Center, they also saw a property with ‘good bones and upside potential. It has high, 14-foot to 17-foot ceilings, expansive column spacing of 30 feet by 36 feet and big windows. As the downtown vacancy rate falls, rents are rising but Downtown Crossing is reasonably priced, Tom tells us. Its rents in the high $30s/SF to $40s/SF compare well to Back Bay rents in the $50s/SF and Cambridge hitting the $60s/SF. Downtown Crossing is still a value play. But back in 2002, Abbey Group saw that it—like Fenway in the ‘90s and Back Bay in the ‘70s—was undervalued,” according to a Bisnow editorial.

The full Bisnow article is available on its website.

0 Boston Commercial Real Estate Retrospective

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Boston office buildings line the skyline

Credit: The Boston Globe

The city of Boston that is home to a wide variety of college, universities, professional sports team, hospitals and companies is changing. We have created the Back Bay, built office tower and now adding more buildings to our skyline. No longer are the tower views home to companies, but residences.

The Boston Globe has put together a retrospective, “A new age for an old town”, tracing the Hub’s commercial transformation. The article notes the following:

Today, Boston Properties, one of the city’s most prolific builders, is developing a 17-story office building on the final parcel within the Prudential complex. Meanwhile, the area around the Pru is exploding with new projects and proposals for hotels and towering residential buildings.

“It’s absolutely extraordinary,” said Bob Richards, a partner at Transwestern RBJ. “What’s driving it is the top-tier labor talent in industries like technology and life sciences. The young people who work for those companies want to live in an urban environment.”

Not coincidentally, the city’s population is rising more rapidly than it has in decades. The total head count rose by nearly 30,000 people, to about 646,000, between 2010 and 2013, according to the US Census Bureau. That’s more population growth in three years than Boston experienced in the 1980s and ’90s combined.

0 Storm-Resistant AquaFence will Shield Atlantic Wharf Building

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Wil Catlin

flood protection around Atlantic Wharf building in Boston financial district

Credit: WGBH

I must admit I have never heard of this, AquaFence. Boston Properties the owner of Atlantic Wharf at 280 Congress is on the forefront of flood prevention.

A WGBH news article describes the AquaFence; “when it’s assembled, an AquaFence turns a single building into something like a walled city, with one big difference: the side of the wall facing out — toward the encroaching storm water — is connected to a series of panels that lie on the ground. Atlantic Wharf’s property manager, Barrett Cooke, says floodwater is supposed to cover those panels on the ground, weighing them down and strengthening the whole AquaFence.”

Some of the tenants for 280 Congress Street are:

• Wellington Financial
• McKinsey
• TripAdvisor
• Raptor Group

0 75-105 Federal St. in Boston’s Financial District Under Agreement

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Financial District office space federal street

Credit: Banker&Tradesman

Another trade is scheduled to take place, 75 – 105 Federal Street in Boston’s Financial District.

According to Banker&Tradesman, “the L-shaped office tower overlooks the city-owned Winthrop Square garage, which could be redeveloped into a massive mixed-use project…Developer Steve Belkin has floated plans for a 740-foot tower on the garage site at 115 Federal St. The project would cost approximately $900 million and contain offices, a 300-room hotel, retail space and possibly condos on the upper floors.”

You can read the full article on B&T, here.

0 Boston Office Market Ranks Third In Global Rent Growth

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Wil Catlin

view of Boston's office buildings over the water

Credit: Banker&Tradesman

Boston is 3rd in office rent growth for 2014 behind Singapore and San Francisco. The factors that drive Boston are the innovative economy and the extensive university presence. The YE Market Report (link below) goes through the Downtown Class B office market fundamentals.

“According to Banker&Tradesman, Boston ranked first globally with a 34.6-percent increase in capital value growth. Foreign investors drove up prices of the Boston region’s commercial real estate, with investors such as Toronto-based Oxford Properties Group and Norges Bank Investment Management buying trophy office buildings in Boston and Cambridge. The index is designed to identify which cities are changing the fastest by combining real estate data with socioeconomic factors.”

You can download a pdf of the report here: http://www.bostonrealestates.com/reports/year-end-2014/Downtown/YE-MarketReport-Downtown-lo.pdf

0 Boston Office Market Continues to Soar

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Nerej.com

Rents are on the move, upward and don’t see any signs of letting up. Class B product in the Downtown Crossing (DTX) area of the city have seen increases from the high $20’s a couple of years ago to the low $40’s. Future predictions expect the 2016 levels to surpass the 2000 and 2007 markets peaks.

Nerej.com notes, “the city of Boston office market is absolutely exploding. 1.72 million s/f of office space was absorbed in 2014, 35% more than in 2013, and 50% more than in 2012. What statistics do not show is that Boston as a city has $110 billion in total assessed value for all its properties; $4 billion in new construction breaking ground, 4,500 current job openings and 44 tech IPO’s in the pipeline. 50% of total absorption in 2014 was urban migration from the suburbs. As of the start of 2015, there are 222,000 s/f of tenants in the market for downtown space alone.

You can read more about the Boston Office Market explosion on Nerej.com.

0 Residential Tower Planned for Greenway

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: BBJ

A new residential mid-rise is coming to Broad Street on the Greenway, included in the project will be a street level café and 52 residential units. What’s going away? The Times Irish Pub & Restaurant.

The BBJ notes the “project would create 175 construction jobs. If approved by the BRA, construction would begin this summer and wrap up in winter 2016…The proposed 110 Broad St. project is located adjacent to 55 India St., a surface parking lot which is the site of a planned $45 million, 12-story, 44-unit condominium tower with ground-floor retail tower that’s been approved by the BRA.”

You can find the full article on the Boston Business Journal, here.

0 Boston Residents can Monitor City’s Development Projects

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Wil Catlin

What is going on over there? That is one question that gets asked time and time again about commercial developments in Boston. Looking to track the Hub’s developments? Now there is an App for that.

According to the BBJ, “Boston residents will be able to track local projects, find meeting times, and submit online feedback through a new online forum hosted on Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development website and at CoUrbanize.com. The move, the city said, would increase transparency in the development process for city-owned land and city-funded housing developments…The city of Boston is using the CoUrbanize platform to catalogue information about city-owned land and buildings available for development, in addition to collecting information about affordable housing developments in which the city has an investment.”

The full article is available on the Boston vertical of the BizJournals website: BizJournals.com/Boston.