Category Archives: Seaport Office Space

0 Seaport Traffic Signs Attempt to Minimize Gridlock

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Traffic sign in Boston Seaport

Credit: The Boston Globe

What is the quickest way home from the office via car? As we all know, this can change based on the day or time of day. Well, there’s an app for that, kind of. The city will be trying out LED signs that are updated remotely with real-time data. The longer-term goal is to make this available online as well.

My plan would be to integrate Google Traffic on a street by street basis and make that available on the LED signs.

The Boston Globe reported “the LED boards will be posted at the exits of high-volume parking garages, providing drivers with real-time driving estimates to help them make more educated decisions — and to help them get the heck out of Dodge as quickly as possible. Three of the signs are set to appear next month.”

Additional details are available on the Boston Globe’s website: Signs to Ease Way out of Seaport

0 Seaport Parking Lot Marked for Condos

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Parking lot at corner of Congress and Farnsworth Street

Credit: Boston Business Journal

Does this look like your parking space in the Seaport?  If so, this could be home to a new condo project, and gone would be the surface-level parking near the Boston Children’s Museum.

A BBJ editorial provides some context for the project, noting, “Redgate Real Estate Advisors is in talks with the owner about buying the 4,939-square-foot lot at 338 Congress St. at the corner of Farnsworth Street. The parcel is assessed at $495,500, but would probably fetch more than five time that amount if sold.”

Additional details are available on The Boston Business Journal’s website

0 Seaport Traffic Growing

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Summer Street office building in Boston's seaport district

321 Summer Street

This is a citywide problem that is not just plaguing the Seaport. As we know, Boston is an old city with both old and new infrastructure. The solution is changing the habits of our commuting population, do we need our car at work every day? Perhaps the city and or employers can offer incentives to keep our cars at home? In London, there is a toll to enter the city during rush hour and as a result that reduces the number of passenger vehicles on the roadways.

The Boston Globe recently looked at how the growth of the Seaport submarket is playing out on the roadways:

“While the morning commute is tolerable, everyone seems to head out at 5 p.m., creating bumper-to-bumper traffic along the main spine on Seaport Boulevard, spilling out onto Atlantic Avenue, and clogging side roads throughout the area…’All this growth wasn’t supposed to happen until 2025,’ said Mayor Thomas Menino. ‘It’s a wonderful success. Because of the success, we’re having a problem. It’s amazing to me.’”

The complete article is available on the Boston Globe’s website: Seaport District Faces Gridlock

0 Office Prices Soaring in Boston’s Innovation District

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Office rents have increased in excess of 40 percent in the last two years in the Innovation District. What will happen as those leases start to roll in 2014, will those tenants be able to afford the new rents?

Boston's innovation district at night

Credit: InnovationDistrict.org

A recent editorial in the Boston Globe noted the challenges facing small businesses and occupants of the Innovation District:

“The Innovation District is in danger of becoming a top-heavy boutique neighborhood because it targets price-sensitive businesses, but has no way of providing stable rents. There’s no consensus about who should pay to keep office rents affordable at the very low end — developers, large companies, area institutions, or the city itself could all conceivably handle the job — and, even if consensus did exist, there’s no means of enforcing it.”

Jump over to the BostonGlobe.com for the full article.

Related Office Listings
South Boston Waterfront Real Estate

0 Seaport District Lands Suffolk Construction

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suffolk construction logoThe Seaport continues to attract tenants along with owners. Suffolk Construction has tossed its hat in the ring to file plans with the Boston Redevelopment Authority for a new 125,000 RSF facility.

According to Bizjournals.com, “Suffolk Construction Co. is planning to leave its longtime headquarters on Allerton Street in Roxbury for a new building it proposes on Harbor Street in Boston’s fast-growing Seaport…Suffolk is planning to build a 125,000 square foot building in the Marine Industrial Park to house the company’s 450 workers.”

Jump over to the original article from the BBJ Morning Buzz, for additional details.

Related Listings & Area Info
Boston Seaport office space

0 Seaport Office Tower Construction Planned around PwC

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Graphic of Seaport Square office tower in Boston

Image Credit: Banker & Tradesman

If you come we will build it for you! That is what Skanska USA Commercial Development agreed to do for PwC. This is usually how new projects get in the ground, most developers and landlords would prefer not to build on spec, but that model has shifted in the very recent past due to the lack of inventory and increased rents most notably in the Seaport District.

According to Banker & Tradesman, “PricewaterhouseCoopers has signed a 15-year lease to occupy the majority of a planned office tower in Boston’s Seaport District. Inking a deal with the accounting firm gave Skanska USA Commercial Development the anchor tenant it needed to begin construction on the 440,000-square-foot tower at the southeast corner of Seaport Boulevard and Boston Wharf Road.”

The complete article is available on Banker & Trademan’s website.

0 Tech Companies Set up Shop in Boston’s Financial District

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high street office building in the financial district

100 High Street in the Financial District

The Financial District is no longer home to bankers, mutual fund managers and lawyers. The Financial District of today is home to a great cross section of newly funded and well established tech companies. Within our client base we are seeing customers looking for Red Line access for their employees along with space that is competitively priced. Office spaces within the Class B market can range from upper $20’s to low to mid $30’s.

The Boston Business Journal reports, “Cassidy Turley, which represents landlords in lease deals, found that the Financial District’s volume of available Class A space fell to 4.4 million square feet, or 18 percent of total square footage, at the end of June. That’s down 20 percent from a year ago or 4.9 million square feet. It also represents the lowest availability rate for any second quarter since 2008 just prior to Wall Street’s crash.”

To read the full BBJ article, continue on to the Boston Business Journal’s website.

Available Office Space
Commercial Space for lease in Boston Financial District

0 Boston Waterfront Real Estate Booming

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building at 200 Seaport Boulevard in Boston's waterfront

World Trade Center Boston, 200 Seaport Blvd.

Well, call it what you’d like: Seaport/Innovation/Fort Point; the reality is the area has blossomed for a myriad companies. Since the sale of the Boston Wharf portfolio we have seen a steady influx of capital to renovate old, tired buildings that had roof leaks, failing windows, and inoperable elevators. The addition of the Turnpike exit and the convention center has added to the core infrastructure that’s helping to accommodate the demand for office space and housing. In the past 30 months, rents in Class B buildings have increased from the upper $20’s to the low $40’s PSF.

Banker & Tradesman recently explored the roots, and validity, of the waterfront’s building ‘boom’:

“with Menino riding into the sunset, it’s high time to find out whether the so-called waterfront building boom is real or instead government-driven at the behest of one of the nation’s most powerful big city mayors.”

B&T’s complete article is available here

0 Boston Office Vacancies Decreasing in Majority of Markets

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Office building in Government Center in BostonTenants that are in the market flock to value; over the last four quarters that value play has been the Financial District.  As those vacancies have been eroded, rents have pushed upward.  What will this mean tomorrow and beyond?  Those tenants that signed leases three plus years ago in the now tight and expensive Seaport Market will seek value options elsewhere if they feel that low $40’s rents for Class B is too much to burden in the Seaport.  

Markets that have benefited and that will continue to do so are Mid Town and North Station.

A post on the Boston Business Journal notes that Back Bay is lagging behind its neighboring submarkets:

“‘the only market where there has been an increase in vacancies is in the Back Bay…there continues to be uncertainly in the city’s most expensive office market with State Street Corp. downsizing considerably, [Debra Gould, a broker at Cushman & Wakefield] said. “They also have 400,000 square feet in Copley and it’s still not clear what will happen to that space … and obviously they are vacating the low-rise portion of the John Hancock Tower and there are price concerns … activity in the Back Bay will be slow.'”

You can read the full BBJ article, here.

Related Listings
Available Office Space in Boston Submarkets

0 Innovation District Attracts Another Corporate Giant

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Boston waterfront in the Innovation district at night

Photo Credit: InnovationDistrict.org

Rents continue to rise, but with that comes landlords willing to build new buildings.  Office rents have continued up quarter over quarter within the Seaport and Innovation District. However, according to an article in The Boston Globe, “accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP is negotiating to occupy a 16-story building that would be built along Seaport Boulevard.”

The complete article is available to all readers on The Boston Globe website: PWHC to Lease Office Space in Innovation District

Related Commercial Real Estate Stats
Boston Office Space Pricing and Market Rates