0 Boston Seaport District Lands Starbucks Reserve Cafe

Posted on June 7, 2016 by Wil Catlin

The Seaport’s 101 Seaport Boulevard will be home to the latest offering from Starbucks Reserve Cafes, AKA, ultra-Starbucks with a premium price of $4 per coffee.

Banker&Tradesman notes “the Seattle coffee giant plans to open one of its “ultra-premium” Starbucks Reserve cafes this summer at 101 Seaport, a 17-story office building that is anchored by the regional headquarters of PwC…Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz recently told analysts the company plans to build more than 500 “coffee-forward” Starbucks Reserve stores in select global cities. Decked out in rustic decor, the new stores offer small-lot coffee batches brewed with a variety of techniques including siphoning, pour-over, espresso and Chemex. The stores also sell Teavana loose-leaf and packaged teas. The new cafes also come with a price premium, with a small coffee selling for $4 at a location that opened this year in Manhattan, according to Business Insider.”

You can read the full article on the Banker and Tradesman website, here.

0 Real Estate Developments Planned for Boston Train Stations

Posted on May 6, 2016 by Wil Catlin

proposed developments at Boston train stations

Credit: Boston Globe

Train and towers will be the combination for three large-scale projects at prime Boston locations, including South Station, Back Bay Station and North Station.

Brief excerpts on each impending Boston train station development from the Boston Globe:

North Station
Boston Properties and Delaware North have already begun construction at North Station. That project will eventually include a 38-story residential tower, two shorter buildings, and a massive retail complex at the long-empty site of the old Boston Garden on Causeway Street.

Back Bay Station
Across town, Boston Properties recently unveiled an ambitious vision to remake Back Bay Station and a neighboring parking garage as the base of a trio of buildings that would join the Back Bay and the South End.

South Station
And at South Station, the Houston developer Hines is attempting to kickstart long-stalled plans to build what would be among the tallest buildings in the city.

According to the Boston Globe article, “all three projects are complex, in terms of engineering and economics. But for the cash-strapped Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, they bring deep-pocketed partners who could help pay for needed transit improvements…In return, the developers would get access to some of the best locations in a crowded city with a growing population, where getting around can be a challenge.”

0 Logan Airport Influenced GE’s Selection of Fort Point HQ

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Wil Catlin

logan airport with office space in the background

Credit: BBJ

Good enough for GE, good enough for me. Boston is number one for a major U.S. city with its international airport 3.5 miles from downtown.

A recent BBJ article notes, “access to transportation is one of the key reasons that General Electric Co. set its sights on Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood for its new headquarters, said Gov. Charlie Baker at a business luncheon in Waltham on Wednesday. Not necessarily public transportation, he said, but air transportation.

“The airport has dramatically expanded its domestic nonstop capacity and international nonstop capacity with all kinds of plans to continue to grow its international nonstop capacity over the course of the next decade,” he said at the Massachusetts High Technology Council’s annual meeting at Bentley University in Waltham on Wednesday. “That starts to look really special and that’s not necessarily something we think about when we think about why GE put Boston and Massachusetts on the map.”

What Cities Gain When Their Airports Are Close to Downtown. This is a piece that came out in 2012, interesting enough, we don’t move our airports or our city centers.

0 GE Picks Seaport Office Space in Fort Point Channel

Posted on April 3, 2016 by Wil Catlin

Credit: The Boston Globe

GE has selected their location for the new corporate headquarters that sits on the edge of the Seaport overlooking Boston’s Financial District.

From the Boston Globe:

GE on Thursday said that it has reached a deal with Procter & Gamble to buy a roughly 2.5-acre piece of Gillette’s South Boston campus along Fort Point Channel, near the Summer Street Bridge and a short walk from South Station.

There, the company plans to rehab two empty brick warehouses — relics of the industrial waterfront — and construct a new building on a portion of an adjacent parking lot. There will be a large sign visible from downtown and public space that will showcase GE’s storied history. The location is firmly in Fort Point, a funky neighborhood full of smaller tech and creative firms that GE wants to tap as it transforms its business.

0 Boston Waterfront Redevelopment a Possible Byproduct of GE Deal

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Boston Globe

The influx of GE jobs may bring Seaport improvements along with them. Traffic in and out the Seaport offers frustrations beyond which Waze can redirect. Let’s hope we see much need infrastructure upgrades.

According to the Boston Globe, “Tucked in the agreement to bring General Electric Co.’s global headquarters to Boston is a commitment from the city to spend as much as $100 million to reopen the Old Northern Avenue Bridge, while the state will kick in $25 million to improve roads, pedestrian walkways, and bike lanes throughout the Seaport District…The money, city and state officials said Tuesday, is beyond what they publicly pledged to encourage the industrial conglomerate to relocate about 800 employees from its home office in Fairfield, Conn. The GE deal, announced last week, included up to $120 million in state subsidies for property and infrastructure expenses and as much as $25 million in tax breaks from the city.”

You can read more on the financial overtones of GE’s move to the Seaport on the Boston Globe’s website, here.

0 Seaport’s Northern Ave. Bridge in it’s last Months

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Boston Magazine

The Northern Ave. Bridge is scheduled to come down in March. The bridge site is now the gateway to the Seaport, which continues to grow with the recent announcement of GE’s election to move its HQ to the thriving Boston submarket.

From Boston Magazine:

The rusty, sad structure that links downtown to the Seaport is set to be removed in March. But the Northern Ave Bridge wasn’t always such a rickety construction; it became a grand throughway across the Fort Point Channel after it was built in 1908. It’s also one of the remaining few swing bridges in Boston, meaning that it pivots when traffic in the water below needs to pass by.

The steel bridge was closed to vehicles in 1997—and recently to pedestrians in December 2014—after the Coast Guard asserted it was hazardous to cross and in danger of collapsing. The bridge’s demolition seems unfortunate, since the aged platform boasts a distinctive history.

0 Seaport Rents Continue to Move North

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Wil Catlin

new office space in boston seaport is constructed

Credit: Boston.com

A recent Boston.com article references apartment rentals in the Seaport, but what is expected for Class A and B office rents? Rents will continue to push Northward, which is due to limited supply in the Seaport submarket. GE moving to town won’t dramatically move the rent needle up or down, but ancillary service providers will continue to chip away at vacancy.

From Boston.com:

“If you look at what has happened since 2011, since post crash,” [Ishay Grinberg, president of Rental Beast] said. “Rents [in Seaport] went on average from about $3,100 to $4,100, from 2011 to 2013.” Then when demand wasn’t high enough, they plummeted almost 20 percent in 2014, but went back up in 2015, increasing 15 percent to an average of $3,850 per month.
Currently, rents are high, but so are vacancies—a rarity for the Boston market….More than 12 percent of all rental units in Seaport are currently vacant, according to Grinberg, while in Downtown only a little more than 2 percent are empty. The Greater Boston vacancy rate is 4 percent. And supply is still coming into Seaport, such as One Seaport Square, will include 832 units.

0 GE Selecting from 8 Boston HQ Options

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Boston Herald

What will GE’s new corporate address be? Here are 8 locations within the Seaport that can accommodate their 2018 move.

The locations among consideration are listed out in a Boston Herald article:

The former Boston Public Schools headquarters at 26 School St. downtown. BPS vacated the historic 11-story, 160,000-square-foot building last year for new space in Dudley Square.
The MassDOT building at 185 Kneeland St. on the edge of Chinatown that is made up of three parcels totaling 5.8 acres, with an existing 104,000-square-foot office building that could be renovated.
Vacant land at 6 Tide St. in the Boston Marine Industrial Park, owned by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, also in the Seaport District. Current site plans call for a 355,000-square-foot development.
A vacant 1.8-acre Massport lot on Congress Street next to the John Hancock building known as “Parcel H” in the Seaport.
Massport land at the intersection of Massport Haul Road and World Trade Center Avenue. The vacant lot has the capacity for a 150,000-square-foot office building. It’s located near the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in the Seaport.
Vacant land at the corner of E and D streets, owned by the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. Both are in the South Boston/Seaport area. The D Street parcel can accommodate a building up to 75 feet in height, and a footprint of 122,000 square feet. The E Street parcel can accommodate up to 10 stories.
A vacant 1.2-acre Massport parcel known as “A-2” at the corner of Congress Street and World Trade Center Avenue in the Seaport area. It’s adjacent to the MBTA Silver Line; a planned parking garage is next to the parcel.
Two parcels of vacant Massport land, known as “D-2” and “D-3,” at the intersection of Summer and D street in the Seaport District. The approximately 4.9-acre site occupies two of the four corners at the intersection.

0 GE Eyes Seaport Office Space in Boston

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Boston Globe

“We Bring Good Things to Life” was an advertising slogan used by General Electric between 1979 and 2003.[1] It was designed by the advertising firm BBDO led by project manager Richard Costello, who would later go on to become head of advertising at General Electric. The slogan was designed to highlight the diversity of the products and services the company offered. The slogan, after its many appearances in GE advertising, was responsible for increased popularity and a new image for the company.

Will GE claim Boston’s Seaport as their new corporate home? A recent article on the Boston Globe notes, “Boston and state officials have been talking frequently with each other and with General Electric Co. about relocating its global headquarters to the Seaport District, according to people familiar with the matter.”

0 Jason Weissman Offers 2016 Economic Outlook

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Bisnow

Jason Weissman, founder of Boston Realty Advisors, gives the Biznow audience his economic outlook for 2016:

Last year, four out of five deals were by companies in industries that previously were only minor players downtown: life science, pharma and healthcare. Millennials accounted for about 75% of Boston’s population growth, Jason says. Look for office vacancy rates in Boston and Cambridge to drop by 200 bsp and rents to rise. Since 2010 in the popular East Cambridge and Seaport office markets, asking rates have jumped nearly 65%, he tells us. In the severely supply constrained luxury condo sector, the only major projects are Millennium Tower, One Dalton, 50 Liberty and Pier 4 (for which BRA’s Advisors Living is the marketing consultant).

You can read the full article on Bisnow.