0 Multiple Projects from Boston Properties Progressing

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Boston Herald

Boston Properties is bullish on Boston with projects underway or proposed from Back Bay, Financial District and North Station.

· 888 Boylston has seen the crane arrive and has announced is major tenant Natixis Global Asset Management
· 100 Federal Street is looking to add more retail on the Congress Street side of the project

From the Boston Herald:

“In 2015, we estimate we could move approximately $1 billion in pre-development projects into our active development pipeline,” CEO Owen Thomas said. “Before launching any of these projects, we need to complete the entitlement and planning process and, in most cases, some level of pre-leasing.”

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 Greenway will Influence Nearby Office Design

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Boston’s Greenway transcends the city’s current incarnation, and will continue to benefit from times gone by. Surrounding buildings will need to create access points to invite visitors to directly access the park and highlight the lush Greenway landscape.

Credit: Bostinno.Streetwise

Bostinno.Streetwise articulates how the city’s architecture can grow to accentuate the Greenway in the coming years:

This beautiful Greenway carved through the heart of downtown Boston, building owners, architects and developers should really be thinking about repositioning the front of their buildings toward the “center.” If you walk down the 1.5-acre strip, you will notice that many of the buildings’ entrances are facing opposite the park toward the dark “maze of streets,” limiting options for retail, hospitality and ultimately commerce along this central corridor.

If we turned these buildings around, similar to what happened in P.O. Square and the projects we completed there, the 1 P.O. Square and 225 Franklin Street lobbies, the Greenway could serve as a grassy green extension of our workplace’s front porch.

You can read the full editorial on Bostinno.Streetwise.co.

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 Hancock Tower Looks to Attract Boston Tech Companies

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Wil Catlin

JHT (John Hancock Tower) is no longer home to only large law firms and large financial services firms. Today JHT is chasing tech tenants that want Class A infrastructure and amenities with large floor plates. The low rise floors fit the bill and can be a great value play for both tenant and landlord. Boston Properties purchased the tower on 12/29/2010 for $930 million from Normandy Real Estate Partners.Some of the tenants include:

Bain Capital
CRA International
Oliver Wyman
Carat International
TA Associates
Berkshire Partners
Arclight Capital

From the Boston Globe:

“Frankly, the tech guys, where most of the demand in the market is, are not necessarily looking to go into a building that’s very corporate feeling,” Martel said. “These technology firms didn’t really care as much about the views. They liked the value, good clear [ceiling] heights, and efficiency.”

0 Boston Office Rents Among Country’s Most Expensive

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Boston Rents continue its upward push with four office markets leading that charge: Back Bay, East Cambridge, Financial District and Seaport. The Class A market within Back Bay is clearly leading the way, while some value still exists within the Class B market. A real driver in the increased rents is the cost of tenant improvement dollars going from shell space to fix up space. Not uncommon to see those numbers north of $75 per square foot.

Credit: Boston Business Journal

According to the BBJ, “the Back Bay’s average rents hovered over $60 last year [while]…Midtown New York commanded about $130 per square foot, and both San Francisco and Washington rents topped $75 per square foot.”

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

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 Office Space Super Bowl

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: rejournals.com

Office Vacancy and the Super bowl, the city with the highest vacancy rate wins.

REjournals compared Boston and Seattle’s office markets, citing a correlation between office vacancies and Super Bowl victories: “according to JLL, NFL teams based in cities with higher office vacancy rates have won the Lombardi Trophy 60 percent of the time in the past 15 seasons, including seven straight years from 2000 through 2006…This year, Boston’s office vacancy rate is 14.7 percent while Seattle’s is 10.7 percent. Based on this statistic, the odds favor New England.”

You can read the complete analysis on rejournals.com.

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.