0 ‘Get Paid While You Wait’ in Boston Real Estate

extra office space in boston for rent

Credit: Kinglet

If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times: A company has outgrown its space and they’re growing. Fast. But, how much space will they need a few years from now is anyone’s best guess. Unfortunately, guessing games won’t cut it. Guess too low and they’re moving again in no time. Guess to high, giving them room to grow, and they won’t be able to afford the rent today.

Countless businesses have sprouted up to solve this challenge. The solutions include incubators and hubs, as well as daily and even hourly rentals, including relative newcomers LiquidSpace and Breather.

There’s another approach that’s picking up steam. Instead of downsizing, a host of new startups have enabled emerging companies to super-size their office space. Companies like PivotDesk and Kinglet, available only in Baltimore for now, help organizations rent out their extra desks, on a month-by- month basis.

While PivotDesk and competitors are still new, the approach isn’t. In fact, in the investing world, it’s an age-old approach known as dividend investing. And fans of this approach aptly refer to it as the “getting paid while you wait” model. Meaning, you buy the stock today and get paid a dividend while the stock slowly grows in value. In the office space analogy, you may only need 2,500 square feet today, but instead, go for 5,000 square feet and rent out the empty desks until you need team.

Continue reading

0 Kendall Square Office and Lab Space in High Demand

office space on binney street in east cambridge

Credit: BBJ

East Cambridge is host to some of the best know pharma and tech companies.  Lab space has become a very limited commodity and Amgen is in the hunt for 150k RSF.  According to CoStar the lab vacancy rate among the 17 buildings is 7.1 percent on a direct basis or 17.3 percent including sublets.

The BBJ puts the competitive Kendall Square real estate market in perspective:

The East Cambridge office and research market includes only 6.4 million square feet — meaning…three deals alone could lock up about 10 percent of the neighborhood’s entire inventory when all is said and done. The activity, along with strong leasing among major information-technology players, is fueling a pricing surge in East Cambridge that has seen average annual rents surpass $58 per square foot, by far the highest in the region and among the highest for any neighborhood in the country, according to market data provided by Cassidy Turley in Boston.

The full article is available on the Boston Business Journal, here.

0 Cambridge Offices for Tech Giants Compared

Kendall Square Office space in cambridge for twitter

Credit: Boston Herald

Where would you rather work?  Google, Microsoft or Amazon.  Have a look at the benefits each has in the Kendall office in East Cambridge.

Xconomy.com has provided an office space comparison of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon’s Kendall Square office space. The articles notes, “just about every West Coast tech company worth its salt has established a branch office in the [Kendall Square] neighborhood. But some are larger than others: the Twitter, Facebook, and Apple outposts remain relatively small, while Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have all established large footprints.”

For more specifics on the tech companies Cambridge offices, jump over to coverage on Xconomy.com.

0 Cambridge Office Building at 90 Hamilton St. Sells for $2.6M

office space at 90 Hamilton Street in Cambridge MA

Credit: Banker & Tradesman

Boston Realty Advisors capital markets team completes another sale transaction.  90 Hamilton Street is located in Cambridge, MA.

From Banker & Tradesman:

“MRH Hamilton LLC of Brookline bought a 7,800-square-foot office building 90 Hamilton St. in Cambridge for $2.6 million…The parcel is suitable for use as an investment property or redevelopment for a variety of commercial or residential uses, according to Boston Realty Advisors.”

You can read the complete B&T article, here

0 Amazon Adds Office Space in Kendall Square

101 main street office space in east Cambridge

101 Main Street in Kendall Square

Since Amazon now charges sales tax, it looks like they’re taking on another expense and adding additional office space at 101 Main Street in East Cambridge.  East Cambridge no longer caters to the emerging small business; now landlords are focused on large corporate tenants like Google and Microsoft.

An article on Xconomy.com adds some context around Amazon’s expanding footprint in Cambridge:

“Amazon recently added about 11,000 square feet to its existing offices in Cambridge’s Kendall Square neighborhood, right next to the prime recruiting grounds at MIT…It’s a popular spot for West Coast technology giants to set up shop as they race to hire talented employees, especially outside the highly competitive San Francisco Bay Area. Google and Microsoft  have significant offices in the same area of Cambridge, and Facebook has added an engineering outpost of its own. Apple also previously established a smaller office, with a focus on speech technology.”

Xconomy’s article on Amazon’s additional space in Cambridge is available, here.

Click through if you want to view additional property details on the listing page for 101 Main Street in Kendall Square.

0 Boston Office Market Maintains Strong Results for Landlords

Boston office building at 155 Federal Street in the Financial District

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 Boston Seaport Attracts Tech and Biotech Start-ups

2 Seaport Lane, Boston Seaport district

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 Boutique Buildings Growing in Boston

rendering of an office building at 22-26 West Broadway St. in Cambridge, MANot all new construction project are towers. Some are boutique buildings designed to blend into their surroundings and fit on a much smaller footprint.

A boutique building recently highlighted on the Boston Herald’s website is Zero Farnsworth. The Herald notes, “in a smaller-scale building you can pay much more attention to the quality of the design and the details,” said Damian Szary, a principal at Boston-based Redgate Real Estate Advisors, whose Gate Residential unit is developing a nine-story condo complex along Congress and Farnsworth streets in the booming Seaport District. With its floor-to-ceiling glass windows all around, Zero Farnsworth will be strikingly contemporary in an area of brick warehouses.”

The full Herald article is available on BostonHerald.com.

 

0 Tech Sector Hoping Walsh can Keep Downtown Office Space Affordable

200 High St. Boston

Office space at 200 High Street in the Financial District

Mayor Menino departs in January for Mayor Elect Walsh.  Will our economy grow and prosper with the next administration?  Well, it is a delicate balance that will spur development while maintaining affordability.

Boston.com posted a dense, thought-proviking piece examining the impact of the mayorial change on small business locations and city-based office space. Here are a few notable quotes from the article:

I spoke with a half dozen tech entrepreneurs about their hopes for and expectations of the incoming Walsh administration, and picked up on two major themes…They want the new mayor to help keep office space affordable and to improve public transit in the Innovation District.”

IdeaPaint president John Stephans told me his business, which is moving from Ashland to Boston in January, would have liked to relocate sooner but found the cost prohibitive until it enjoyed several successful years.

“We always wanted to be in the city, as do a lot of companies,” he said. “But I think companies feel priced out, especially young, venture-backed start-ups.”

The full article is available on Boston.com, here.

0 New Shared Workspaces Opening in Kendall Square

210 Broadway Street in Kendall Sq. in Cambridge

210 Broadway St. in Cambridge, MA

In light of the fierce competition of office space in Kendall Square, another shared-space option has put its stake in the ground, catering to the small user. For $400 per. month, you too can have a place to call “The Office” at 210 Broadway.

According to the BBJ, “NGIN, whose name was chosen because it sounds like engine, will open a 15,000-square-foot center 210 Broadway in Cambridge’s Kendall Square to serve as a “living lab that deploys advanced technology to explore the future of worklife,” according to the company’s marketing materials. The company is competing against Cambridge Innovation Center, Workbar, Dogpatch Labs and Geek Offices for a growing niche market.”

For more info, you can read the full BBJ article, here.

Related Real Estate Listings
Office Space in Kendall Square