Boston is rising! We are witnessing one of the city’s largest building booms and the attached map, courtesy of the Boston Business Journal, lays out all of the active sites.
Credit: BBJ
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.
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:
Credit: Boston Globe
Government Center is schedule to make way to two glass towers would extend to 500 +/- feet tall. One tower would be dedicated for residential while the second would be for office space.
“The construction will unfold in phases over the next five years or so. And when done, the whole complex — six buildings and 2.3 million square feet — would be one of the biggest developments to come out of Boston’s current building boom. Opening up that section of Congress Street and adding a large public space within the retail plaza will help reconnect some of the most historic pockets of the city,” a Boston Globe article notes.
“We’re going to see just how significant that parcel is. It’s at the intersection of the Bulfinch Triangle, the North End, Beacon Hill, and Government Center,” said George Thrush, an architecture professor at Northeastern University. “That garage has been a real barrier and now it won’t be.”
You can read the full Boston Globe article on its website: Government Center Garage Gets Final Approval.
Credit: BBJ
Why do Liberty Mutual, Silicon Valley Bank (Nasdaq: SIVB) and IBM (NYSE: IBM), Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and Constant Contact (Nasdaq: CTCT) take temporary office space form providers like Work Bar and WeWork? In short, management wants certain aspects of these business to think like a startup and not like a lumbering giant.
From the Boston Business Journal:
“It allows us to get (access) to new ideas and new talent,” said Sandeep Gupta, a vice president and head of innovation at Liberty Mutual. “You can do that pretty easily just rubbing shoulders in the hallway.”
Liberty Mutual’s entrance into WeWork this fall coincided with the launch of the Solaria team. The incubator has a broad mandate: developing new products and services with “transformational potential,” that may or may not have anything to do with insurance.
At the moment, the company has two offices in WeWork that can fit a combined 32 people. Right now, the rooms are home to about a dozen Liberty Mutual employees and members of two startups, end-of-life planning company Cake and drone maker Xactsense. Liberty Mutual offers the companies free space, as well as human resources and other types of support, while the startups offer advice and connections in two areas of keen interest to the insurer.
Credit: BBJ
GE is coming, GE is coming! Boston is different, this is not just a place to have an office, it is an area to foster growth and explore far-fetched ideas and move dreams to reality.
This quote says it all:
“GE aspires to be the most competitive company in the world,” said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt in a statement. “Today, GE is a $130 billion high-tech global industrial company, one that is leading the digital transformation of industry. We want to be at the center of an ecosystem that shares our aspirations. Greater Boston is home to 55 colleges and universities. Massachusetts spends more on research and development than any other region in the world, and Boston attracts a diverse, technologically-fluent workforce focused on solving challenges for the world. We are excited to bring our headquarters to this dynamic and creative city.”
I feel lucky to be practicing RE in this region that attracts companies like GE.
For more info on GE’s move to Boston’s Seaport, jump over to the BBJ’s article.
Credit: Boston Business Journal
Office fit-ups are more in-line to accommodate an employee as a whole person than a worker. The notion that you can bring your dog, grab a beer and play ping-pong doesn’t sound like a workplace or a bar, but rather a gathering at a friend’s house. Architects and landlords have embraced this and are trying to retrofit existing buildings, while incorporating this approach into new construction.
Another illustration of this trend is HubSpot’s new Cambridge office space. According to Bizjournals, “the expansion at 2 Canal is a complement to the company’s existing headquarters at 25 First St. in Cambridge. Dozens of employees are moving into the new office this week, including HubSpot’s product team, business operations and product marketing. That will free up room for renovation and expansion projects at the company’s 118,000-square-foot headquarters at 25 First St., where they recently signed a lease extension to occupy most of the building in the coming years.”
You can read the full article from the BBJ, here.
Credit: Boston Herald
What’s in a name? In short, research. The goal is for the name to project the building’s identity and brand to its current and future prospects.
From the Boston Herald:
Krista Bourque, creative director of Branding Iron, a real estate branding studio inside Boston architectural firm Stantec, says a lot of research and thought goes into a name, including the history of a site, the surrounding neighborhood and an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the competition. She says a building’s name is a big part of its brand identity and how a property is perceived by its investors, potential buyers or renters.
“Giving a building a name is about giving it a personality and creating an image that differentiates it from the competition,” adds Brenda Adams, owner of Adams Design, who has been naming projects since 1990, including the South End’s Penmark and North Station’s Strada 234.
Credit: Banker and Tradesman
The Seaport district continues to attract a wide array of B-to-C companies that to cater to the ever-growing daytime and nighttime population.
“Blue Hills Bank is set to open a new branch in the Boston’s Seaport District by summer of this year. The new 3,000-square-foot location at 85 Seaport Blvd. will feature user-friendly technology, a coffee bar and community space for receptions and seminars,” according to a Banker&Tradesman report.
You can read the full article, here.
Related Property Listings
Seaport Office Space for lease
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts packs a powerful punch when you combined education and innovation. Our state is number one in both of those categories, which is why we are a hotbed of new and expanding business across the state.
According to Bloomberg, “the Boston area’s Route 128 eked out a victory over Silicon Valley, as Bloomberg’s ranking of the most innovative states in the U.S. illustrates how universities can juice local economies…The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Behravesh’s alma mater, is one such school that’s provided a ripple effect for the local economy…MIT graduates have produced around 400 startup businesses over the past few decades.”
You can read the full Bloomberg article on its website.
Credit: Bloomberg