0 Boston Plans Services and Office Space for Entrepreneurs

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Shared office space

Credit: Boston Business Journal

Tech industry insiders are trying to find better ways to connect with you.  What do you care about when you consider starting something new:

  • Location
  • Cost
  • Term
  • Amenities
  • Collaboration
  • Mentors
  • Synergistic services

From the BBJ:

At a Monday meeting in Boston of the governing board of MassTech Collaborative’s Innovation Institute, industry leaders talked about what’s working with the state’s vast programs and services for entrepreneurs, what could be done better, and how significant the services are to the broader economy.

Massachusetts is already home to several “collaborative workspaces” for entrepreneurs, ranging from co-working spaces such as WeWork to makerspaces such as Arisan’s Asylum in Somerville, to incubators such as Greentown Labs in Somerville and accelerators such as Boston-based MassChallenge.

The MassTech Collaborative’s 2015 “Innovation Index” found that there are about 33 co-working spaces, 25 makerspaces, 26 incubator programs and 15 accelerator programs in Massachusetts.

0 BRA Feature: Boston Office Market Update

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Google map of boston office space available

Available office space in Cambridge and Boston

As Boston marches through a gilded real estate cycle as insatiable growth spills out of Cambridge into submarkets not traditionally known as tech or life science destinations, we take a moment to pause and survey the evolving office landscape.  Given the strength of the regional economic growth, the compilation of markets including Boston, its inner core and Cambridge have seen the Class A office sector achieve a vacancy rate of 8.0% in the 4Q15 which is an improvement over the prior cycle’s low of 8.3% set in Q108.  The current success of the market is underpinned by positive absorption being posted in 18 of the last 19 quarters.  Not surprisingly, the same asset class has effectively reached the high water rent benchmark of $56.42 PSF set at the peak of the last cycle when the Q415 closed with Class A office rents averaging $56.39 PSF.

While the capital markets sector has been on fire given the health and view of Boston as one of the safest markets for investment, the fundamentals have pushed the development community to enter the discussion in a rather pronounced way.  In 2012, all of the 2.1M SF of product under construction was preleased.  In the 12 month period closing at the end of 2015, only 64% of the 3.2M SF of product under construction had commitments.  This telling stat indicates that developers and their capital partners are underwriting significantly more risk as spec office buildings begin to enter the market but with the belief that tight supply will drive rents through the asset’s absorption period.

Taking a deeper look at recent pure spec office deliveries, which include Samuels & Associates’ Van Ness project at 1325 Boylston Street (237,935 SF), FRIT’s delivery of 450 Artisan Way at Assembly Row (99,000 SF) and the first of Skanska’s office deliveries at 101 Seaport Avenue (440,000 SF), lease up velocity has been impressive.  Within nine months of delivery, Samuels is almost 72% leased with the recent news of UnitedHealth Group’s lease of 125,000 SF.  Skanska is 81% leased with PwC taking 232,938 SF as the anchor tenant and FRIT is100% leased since delivering in 2014.  With CoStar showing another 15 projects under construction totaling 2.32M SF with leasing commitments of 56.9%, it is clear that the spec development cycle is ratcheting up in Boston and its surrounding core submarkets.

Additionally there are several large sites that are toeing the line and potentially adding further office inventory to the market including DIVCO’s Northpoint site which has 2M SF in the pipeline, FRIT who sits on 1.6M SF of inventory at Assembly Row, HYM Group with 1M SF at the redevelopment of The Government Center Garage, Boston Properties Hub on Causeway with 700K SF and New Balance which has another 430K SF in Allston to name a few high profile projects.  The question on the mind of the real estate community is how long this upcycle will last and which of these projects will be able to survive an inevitable down turn.

0 Stiff Competition for Tech Talent in Boston

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tech employees in Boston

Credit: Boston Globe

The growth of our tech economy has created some hurdles for employers seeking some tech talent.  Benefits to employees have moved to Foosball, basketball courts and roof decks to help promote an inviting culture.

What does your company offer?

From the Boston Globe:

An index published by the Massachusetts High Technology Council, a trade group in Waltham, ranks Massachusetts as the most difficult state in the country to hire tech workers, along with Maryland and Virginia. The index, compiled with Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the employment site Monster.com, and the New York research firm Wanted Analytics, is based on a variety of data, including job postings and local unemployment rates.

“The level of demand and hiring difficulty are an indicator of the tech sector’s strength,” said Mark Gallagher, the high tech council’s vice president for public policy and communications, “but if unaddressed could be a constraint on the region’s ability to expand and remain a leader.”

 

0 Park Square Shared Office Space: WeWork’s New Location

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WeWork opening in Park Square

Credit: Boston Globe

WeWork continues its global expansion with adding 31 St. James Avenue in Boston’s Back Bay to its location roster.

The Park Square Building, 31 St. James Avenue, is a 445,464 square foot building 11 stories tall with 40,524 square foot floors according to CoStar. The building was built in 1922 and is owned by Capital Properties.

Where is Park Square in Boston? Here’s Wikipedia’s overview:

Park Square in downtown Boston, Massachusetts is bounded by Stuart, Charles Street South, Boylston, and Arlington Streets. It is the home of the Boston Four Seasons Hotel, the Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers, and nearly a dozen restaurants. To the north across Boylston Street is the Boston Public Garden. To the east is the Washington Street Theatre District. The Bay Village neighborhood is to the south, and Back Bay is to the west.

At one time, the terminus of the Boston and Providence Railroad was located in the square, however after South Station opened, the terminal was closed.

A small street in the district was renamed “Park Plaice” in honor of Legal Sea Foods, a restaurant located there.

0 Iconic Boston Landmark Seeks new Landlord

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Citgo Sign Boston at night

Credit: Boston Globe

Are you looking to be the landlord of the Citgo Sign in Fenway? Now is your time.

From the Boston Globe:

In all, the nine buildings total 334,000 square feet of commercial space across one-and-a-half acres along Beacon Street, Commonwealth Avenue, and Deerfield Street. Their tenants include the Barnes & Noble that serves as BU’s campus bookstore, a Bertucci’s restaurant, Cornwall’s pub, and other tenants. Then there’s the famous sign on top…The electric triangle is not technically part of the sale; it’s owned by a billboard company that leases air rights from BU. It would be up to the new owner whether to continue that lease, Nicksa said. But he notes that the iconic sign is part of the value of the property.

“We’re not going to presume anything at this point,” he said. “But there’s real value there. It’s one of the unique attributes of the property.”

0 Nissan Promo Showcases Self-Parking Office Chairs

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Technology has changed our lives in ways many of us could not have imagined.  The influx of this has required us to have a constant demand of charging systems and adapters.  Nissan’s self-parking office chairs are a great example of cool technology, but I can’t imagine charging offices chairs along with my phone.

Ubergizmo posted the video (below) displaying the Nissan technology in which  “simply by clapping hands together, office chairs will be able to self-park at their respective desks. This helps create a neat and tidy look, something that offices don’t typically look like at the end of the day when everyone is done with work and just can’t wait to rush back home for their dinner…According to Nissan, these are modified Okamura chairs that are tracked by four motion cameras mounted on the walls and are controlled by WiFi.”

0 Government Center Garage Towers get BRA Approval

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Government Center garage towers

Credit: Boston Globe

Government Center Garage will become a beacon of redevelopment for Boston.

From the Boston Globe:

The Boston Redevelopment Authority board gave its OK to a pair of towers on the site of the Government Center Garage straddling Congress Street. Construction on the first — a 480-foot luxury apartment high-rise — will begin this spring, developers say. The second — a 43-story office tower — will launch once it has secured a major tenant.

The towers are the first two phases of a six-building plan by the Boston development firm HYM Investment and National Real Estate Advisors of Washington to transform the giant 1960s-era garage into a complex of housing, office buildings and retail. When fully completed, the project would include 812 new housing units, 1.1 million square feet of office space, a hotel, and retail storefronts. It would open up the northern end of Congress Street for the first time in a half-century.

0 Permit Application Filed to Dismantle Northern Avenue Bridge

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Boston Seaport Bridge under construction

Credit: The Boston Globe

The Northern Ave. Bridge is closer to becoming a memory, once joining the Financial District to the Seaport.  When it was built it would have been hard to imagine that it would come to connect two vibrant, non-industrial areas of our waterfront. Let’s hope the city moves forward with a replacement to assist in the congestion of success that has occurred.

From the Boston Globe:

In a new permit application filed with the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that oversees the waterway, the city proposes dismantling the bridge by disconnecting its three spans and transporting the pieces via barge to a city-owned storage yard in East Boston.

Full dismantling of the structure — which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and beloved by preservationists — could take up to three months, said city engineer Para M. Jayasinghe. It is expected to cost $15 million.

While the bridge is being taken down, the channel would have to be closed to accommodate the work.

 

0 Clover to Open Restaurant at 160 Federal Street

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Clover restaurant in Boston

Credit: BBJ

Clover is taking on more bricks and mortar with their recent lease signing of retail space at 160 Federal Street at the corner of Federal and High Street.  The building has recently been acquired by Beacon Capital.

According to the BBJ, the “long-vacant retail space [is] located less than half a mile from Clover’s recently opened brick-and-mortar location at 27 School St. and its Dewey Square food truck spot…The ground-floor location at the corner of Federal and High streets spans 2,797 square feet has been vacant since American Express vacated the space in 2013. It’s currently being built out for Clover and will be ready for occupancy by spring or summer, said Dave Downing, director of leasing and development for GraffitoSP who handles retail leasing at 160 Federal St.”

The full Boston Business Journal article is available on the BBJ website.

0 USPS Focus on South Boston Location

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Boston South Station

Credit: Banker&Tradesman

The largest commuter hub North of New York City is South Station, yet the largest abutter is a mail sorting facility.  In 1965, yes 51 years ago, part of the site was sold and the Boston South Postal Annex was created.  A number of things have changed since 1965 and some still need to; the Boston South Postal Annex should be redeveloped to better serve the community.

According to a B&T report, rather than “expanding the search to other Boston neighborhoods, or for that matter, suburban locations, the brokers working for the postal service have doubled down on Southie…Now brokers working for the postal service say they are moving closer to a deal for a site on D Street near the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, where traditional South Boston meets the Seaport.

You can read more on the USPS’s hunt for space in Southie on Banker&Tradesman.