Category Archives: Seaport Real Estate

0 MassMutual Plots 300,000 SF Office Building on Parcel E

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Springfield office building

Credit: Boston Business Journal

The Seaport in Boston is not only home to tech, life science, law firms and luxury condos, but now with be home to MassMutual with room for 1,000 workers. The new office building will be a 300,000 SF building on Parcel E.

Roger Crandall, MassMutual’s chairman, president and CEO “said the decision to expand in Boston and upgrade its Springfield office followed ‘a thorough strategic assessment of our operations and footprint.’ Following that, MassMutual ‘concluded that our home state of Massachusetts is the best place for us to grow and thrive over the long term’…The Boston office will be developed on property MassMutual jointly owns with The Fallon Co., a Boston-based real-estate development firm. Fallon Co. and MassMutual together acquired the Fan Pier development zone in 2005 for $115 million, and Parcel E has remained undeveloped since.”

You can read the full Boston Business Journal article on its website, here.

0 Is the Seaport Gondola How You’re Getting to Work Tomorrow?

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Gondola in city, like Boston

Credit: Curbed Boston

Is getting to work taking too long since your office has moved to Boston Seaport? If so, the Seaport’s solution to your congestion could be a gondola system, according to Boston City Councilor Michael Flaherty.

From Biznow:

Millennium Partners has proposed a Summer Street, cable-propelled gondola network running from South Station to a property one of its subsidiaries owns in the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park, the Boston Herald reports. As many as 71 10-passenger cabins could move as many as 4,000 passengers per hour in and out of the Seaport, where traffic is notoriously congested.

“A lot of commercial entities are struggling with whether they’re going to renew their leases or they want to come here, because it’s hard to get in and out,” Flaherty said on the Herald’s radio station Wednesday. “The gondola [system] … solves that.”

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Boston Seaport Office Space for Lease

0 Boston Continues to Lure Large Corporate Tenants

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121 Seaport

Credit: Courant

Boston continues to win large corporate tenants from our neighboring states.

In an article on the Courant, Alexion said “its headquarters would move from New Haven to Boston to support plans for growth…[noting] Boston will provide access to a ‘larger biopharmaceutical talent pool and a variety of life-sciences partners to further support future growth initiatives.’”

The full article is available on the Courant.

Related Office Space Listings
Seaport Office Space for Lease

0 Underwater Garages in Boston?

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We all agree, finding garage parking in Boston can be a challenge. What about parking under the Charles River or under the Fort Point Channel?

Amsterdam parking under water

Image Credit: Curbed

In a recent article the Boston Globe notes, “in a city like Boston, where the most parking-starved areas are surrounded by water, the payoff could be significant: helping to reduce the pollution and traffic caused by drivers circling the block hunting for spot, making parking more affordable, and freeing up more street-level space for other uses.”

The Globe article also includes the following comment of the feasibility of such an undertaking:

“It’s definitely very possible,” said Arthur G. Stadig, vice president of Walker Parking Consultants, who said a client of his Boston firm — whom he declined to identify — recently toyed with the idea of extending part of a planned parking garage into the harbor…It’s just a matter of is there that right combination of a development that’s close to the water, needs the parking, and is feasible from all different aspects,” including cost and securing regulatory approvals.”

You can read the full article on the Globe’s website.

 

0 Could Track 61 Offer Rail Service throughout the Seaport?

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Seaport train location

Credit: Boston Globe

Can track 61 save the Seaport from its own success? To be clear, it could help and we could use it.

From the Boston Globe:

Originally a freight line that was part of the industrial rail yards along the South Boston Waterfront, Track 61 has been unused for many years while around it a new neighborhood of glass-walled offices, luxury condos, and hip restaurants has sprung up.

The roughly 1.5-mile spur [that] cuts across the Seaport District from the southwestern edge of South Boston…is coming back to life [to test] new Red Line subway cars that are being built for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Springfield.

The work will include an electrified third rail along Track 61 to power the Red Line cars, a new shed, and other improvements.

0 Fort Point Pedestrian Bridge to be Restored by GE

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Fort Point office buildings

Credit: Boston Globe

GE unveils a glimpse of our industrial past with renderings to the new pedestrian bridge at their new world headquarters in Boston’s Seaport. The new bridge will be used as four separate lounges and quiet working spaces for GE employees.

From the Boston Globe:

Consistent with its historical design, GE expects to keep a green wall on the east side of the bridge. But the bridge’s west side, facing downtown, would look quite different. The windowless facade, currently shielded by corrugated metal, would be replaced with banks of tall windows. The interior — oddly shaped at 40 feet long by 7 feet wide — is to be used as four separate lounges and quiet working spaces for GE employees.

The bridge was once an important link between buildings in the old New England Confectionery Co. complex. But it has long since outlived its original function. It now extends between one of two old brick buildings that GE will occupy and another former Necco building, currently owned by Synergy Investments. The Synergy-owned office building will remain walled off from the GE bridge.

0 Multi-Dimensional Seaport Office Building Billed as a ‘Game-Changer’

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Multi-dimensional commercial building in Seaport Boston

Credit: Boston Business Journal

Innovative architecture is proposed for the Seaport section of Boston curtesy of WS Development and their architect OMA based out of the Netherlands.

88 Seaport will feature 18 floors with nearly 425,000 square feet of office space, approximately 60,000 square feet of retail on the first two floors, and 5,000 square feet of civic/cultural use space. The building design features a unique series of cascading exterior terraces and a grand architectural gesture towards Fan Pier Green and the water’s edge.

From Bizjournals.com:

Yanni Tsipis, senior vice president with WS Development, told the Business Journal on Tuesday that the proposed design of the 88 Seaport Blvd. office is a game-changer for Seaport architecture. Shohei Shigematsu, a partner with Dutch architecture firm OMA, conceived the design for 88 Seaport, the firm said.

“It’s exciting to engage with the innovation migration to the Seaport District, and work with WS Development on a building positioned to be the nexus between historic Fort Point and the emerging waterfront developments,” Shigematsu said in a statement. “Our design for 88 Seaport slices the building into two volumes, creating distinct responses for each urban scale of old and new, while also accommodating diverse office typologies for diverse industries with demands for traditional and alternative floorplates. The slice also generates an opportunity to draw in the district’s public domains, linking the waterfront and Fan Pier Green with a continuous landscape.”

0 The Davis Company Moves on Major Seaport Developments

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Rendering of modern seaport office complex

Credit: Bisnow

The Davis Company has big plans for the Seaport area of Boston, which includes the construction of the Seaport’s largest hotel to date, along with the renovation of a 376-square-feet of industrial space in the heart of Boston’s most bustling commercial submarket.

From Bisnow:

“Our goal is to help continue the transformation of South Boston’s waterfront district, as there has already been significant development over the last several years,” Omni Hotels & Resorts CEO Jim Caldwell said.

The Omni project is not the only development the company has underway in the neighborhood. Davis announced in April a return to a stretch of the Seaport it famously revived before the rest of the neighborhood began its current building boom.

“The Seaport, and in particular the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park area, is arguably becoming Boston’s most innovative research and development cluster,” Davis Cos. founder and CEO Jonathan Davis said.

0 GE Brands Boston HQ ‘Innovation Point’

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GE's seaport HQ, Innovation point

Credit: Boston Business Journal

Where is Innovation Point? If you ask your Uber driver, I imagine you will get a confusing look back at you from the rear view mirror.  If you Google it, it is yet to be clearly defined in Maps other than showing part of the Northern end of the Seaport section of South Boston. Innovation Point is the name selected by GE for their new corporate headquarters in Boston.

Jeff Caywood a GE spokesperson, said the name is a reflection of both the neighborhood and company…The “innovation” piece is reflective of GE’s 125-year history, and the innovative products it has brought to the market — everything from lightbulbs to appliances to jet engines, he said. The “point,” meanwhile, reflects both the Fort Point neighborhood and the “acceleration point” of GE as it transforms into what it has dubbed a “digital industrial” company.

You can read the full article on the BBJ, here.

0 Davis Co. Returns to Boston Seaport District, Purchases 88 Black Falcon Ave.

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Once a seller and now a buyer, the Davis Company is buying 88 Black Falcon Ave. for $60 million. The borders of the Seaport District submarket haven’t changed physically since Davis sold Back Falcon in 2006, but tenants desire to be there has changed. The Seaport office market has blossomed and is now one of the hottest markets in the country with a diverse tenant mix of TAMI, law, and life sciences.

Seaport office building on Black Falcon

Credit: Bizjournals

According to a recent article from the Boston Business Journal, “the low-rise complex spans a combined 376,000 square feet, about evenly split between office and warehouse/R&D space, at the far edge of the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park…Davis Cos. plans to put “tens of millions of dollars into the property,” said CEO Jon Davis, and has tasked architecture firm Dyer Brown with creating a warm industrial aesthetic. Planned improvements include bolstering 88 Black Falcon’s structural underpinnings, adding WiFi throughout the property, and creating a bike storage area and fitness facility. Davis aims to complete work by the second quarter of 2018.”

You can read more on the BBJ, here.