0 BRA Approves Six Office Building Projects in Boston

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redering of Boston's Congress Sq.

Credit: Boston Globe

Six buildings in Boston’s Financial District, Congress Square, are set for complete renovation by Related Beal.

According to the Boston Globe, the BRA approved six projects in total, “the agency gave the go-ahead to some $515.6 million in development…One of the biggest projects is Congress Square, the renovation of an entire city block of buildings in the Financial District, between Congress and Water streets. Developer Related Beal plans to turn six office buildings into a boutique hotel, new housing, and office space…Also approved was Clippership Wharf, which would put 492 apartments and condos on 12 acres on the waterfront in East Boston. Developer Lend Lease plans to move forward on the long-stalled project and won approval to add housing units and subtract parking spaces from a plan approved in 2003.”

You can read the full article on the Boston Globe, here.

0 A Roadway Naming Debate Surrounds The Boston Greenway

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The Greenway Boston and surrounding roads

Credit: BostInno

Yes, this should be renamed as it has become a landmark in our city.  Boston is confusing to navigate; Uber, Google and Waze have helped, but let’s give one of our new attractions a simpler address.

The debate, and subsequent argument for renaming the roads surrounding The Greenway is articulated by Bostinno.Streewise.co, noting “the Rose Kennedy Greenway is flanked by two parallel streets that run in a different direction. Atlantic Avenue winds northbound while on the other side, headed southbound, is a single street known at different points as John F. Fitzgerald Surface Road, Purchase Street, Surface Road and again John F. Fitzgerald Surface Road…By renaming what we’ll refer to here in this article as Surface/Purchase, pedestrians and non-natives would have an easier time making their way through Downtown, while the Greenway’s brand recognition would significantly increase—and that in turn would benefit the surrounding area and buildings.”

You can read the full article here: Bostinno.Streetwise.co – why this busy downtown Boston road should be renamed after The Greeenway.

0 Boston High-Rise Office Space: Rents Exceeding $90 per sq. foot

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745 Atlantic Ave office space in Boston

Credit: Bizjournals.com

Boston office rents continue to grow as tenants continue to migrate to downtown Boston high-rise office buildings.

From the Boston Business Journal:

Low-rise and Class B offices are now commanding rents in the mid- to upper $40s range, while high-rise rents are reaching well past the $90 per square foot range, according to second-quarter research from commercial real estate services firm DTZ. Class B office rents are up 21 percent from last year in the Financial District, 12 percent in the North Station region and 20 percent in South Station, DTZ said.

“It’s also worth noting that nearly 25 percent of Boston’s office inventory has traded hands in the past 12 months,” the research report said.
Meanwhile, Cambridge also maintained its post as the strongest real estate market in Massachusetts, with $2.2 billion in sales activity. That’s more than half of the overall $4 billion in total sales volume so far this year, according to recently released second-quarter research from JLL..Direct average rents rose more than 5 percent year-over-year in nine out of 12 of Boston’s submarkets, topping out with 16.3 percent growth in East Cambridge.

0 Boston Office Rents up 7.6%

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1 broadway in kendall

One Broadway in Kendall Square (click for property details)

Fewer options exist on the Boston office market, and what is available is more expensive then previous quarters.  Combined with fewer concessions offered by landlords, local tenants are feeling the pinch.

From the Boston Globe:

Boston’s office market is hopping, according to reports issued by real estate brokerages Transwestern and Jones Lang LaSalle. Driven by strong employment gains and growing companies in need of additional space, rents are rising all across Greater Boston, up 7.6 percent in the last 12 months. Throughout Cambridge, there are just three vacant office spaces of 20,000 square feet or more on the market, and rents in Kendall Square are averaging above $70 per square foot. Along Route 128, vacancy rates are at record lows, while office rents along Interstate 495 are at seven-year highs.

0 Kendall Square to Copley Move for Notable Cambridge Firms

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4 Copley Place

Credit: Wayfair

The pilgrimage to Boston continues as Cambridge tightens; InsightSquared and Architectural Resources will soon call Back Bay home.

The BBJ notes, “Business analytics firm InsightSquared, which just last spring moved into expanded office spaces at 160 Second St., this September will move to a 45,000-square-foot office at 4 Copley Place. The office spans two floors and is almost triple the size of Insight Squared’s 16,000-square-foot Kendall Square location…The expansion is driven by InsightSquared’s growing customer count and revenue, a company representative said. The office will also accommodate the firm’s growing employee base, which has doubled to more than 150 in the past year.”

You can real the full Boston Business Journal report on its website, here.

Relevant Available Real Estate in Boston and Cambridge
Kendall Square Office Space
Back Bay office space for lease

0 Boston Firefighters to Receive Boost of Real-time Data on Calls

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real time map of greater Boston and surrounding areas

Credit: Here.com

Boston Fire Fighters will be better equipped when responding to a call.  Our first responders will now be equipped with information from a variety of city departments, including Inspectional Services and Permitting. Streaming data will provide an array of relevant data to the fire truck while on route to a call; this will hopefully mitigate hazards along the way, and keep the fire fighters up-to-date on all necessary info related to the call.

From the Boston Herald:

“The more tools we can get in the hands of a firefighter, the more knowledge they have upon entering a fire, the better off we are,” said Boston Fire Commissioner Joseph E. Finn. “When you’re in that high-stakes environment, every second counts and every decision matters.”

Fire trucks will soon be outfitted with what the city calls “building intelligence” software that taps into records and data from other city departments, including Inspectional Services and Permitting. That will let firefighters know the building’s floor plan, whether it has sprinklers and potential hazards in the building…Before entering a building, firefighters will also have access to information about whether the structure has a history of code violations, including illegal apartments.

0 New Boston Skyscrapers will Make — or Brake — the Skyline

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Copley square office buildings in Boston

Credit: Boston Globe

The greater Boston audience has an opinion about just about anything, including our skyline. This poses a challenge to Boston’s strongest developers and architects to reshape our city into something elegant, energizing, and functional.

From the Boston Globe:

No matter how elegantly they may be paved or planted, urban plazas are boring, windy, and little used, especially in weather like ours. The Prudential, back before its Arctic plazas were filled in with shopping arcades, was a good example. The Federal Reserve Bank, next to South Station, is another. It’s a handsome, eloquent Diva tower behind a plaza that has the charm of a recently abandoned battlefield.

As far as the public is concerned, cities aren’t made of buildings and plazas, anyway. Cities are made of streets and parks. From the point of view of urban design, the buildings are there to shape those public spaces and feed them with energy.

0 Kendall Square Office Space gets Remade

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200 Sidney st. cambridge ma

Credit: BBJ

Changes are on the move for East Cambridge. Vertex’s old HQ in Kendall Square is poised to be remade.

From the Boston Globe:

The deal will enable Biomed to begin renovating the buildings. They include two lab and office buildings at 200 Sidney St. and 40 Erie St., with a total of 239,000 square feet, that were leased to Vertex through this December, and another 21,000 square feet at 21 Erie St. that was leased to Vertex through May 2017.

Biomed said it will update the buildings’ entrances and lobbies, and add indoor and outdoor collaboration spaces and fitness centers. The work will begin immediately and the sites should be ready to be leased to new tenants starting in September, the developer said.

Related Listings
Kendall Square office space for lease

0 Can the Supply of Office Space in Boston Keep up with Demand?

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office buildings in boston on the waterfront

Credit: Banker&Tradesman

The Boston market will continue to grow through 2018.  How will this affect office pricing in the years to come?

From Banker&Tradesman:

“The challenge you have in the city of Boston is: do we create too much supply and get to a point where we’re not seeing rent growth?” said Mitchell Roschelle, PwC’s national practice head of real estate advisory. “We heard this quarter in the survey a little bit of concern on the part of some investors about the new supply to the market. How that supply performs is going to dictate whether we see investors flooding the market with capital.”

The tenant retention rate was 68 percent in the first quarter with landlords offering an average of five months of free rent, according to the survey. Cap rates averaged 5.7 percent in the Boston central business district and 7.2 percent in the suburbs. Boston is one of 32 U.S. office markets expected to remain in expansion phase in 2015, the PwC report said, with employment generating demand for office space outpacing new supply…San Francisco, which shares many of Boston’s market characteristics, is expected to contract in 2015 and enter a recession mode with negative rental growth in 2017.

0 Updates Coming to Boston’s Financial District

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rendering of congress street redevelopment

Credit: Bizjournals.com

More new retail, office and hotel options are coming to the Boston Financial District, centered around the intersection of State Street and Congress Street.

According to the BBJ, the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s agenda for its Thursday City Hall meeting includes the following projects:

  • A public hearing to discuss a proposed 23-story, 346-room“micro hotel which is designed to meet the changing needs/habits of today’s urban travelers” at 240 Tremont St. in the Theater District.
  • A public hearing to discuss Simon Property Group’s (NYSE: SPG)residential and retail expansion projectat 5 Copley Place, a proposed 52-story tower that includes 542 units of residential space spanning 680,000 square feet, a 54,000-square-foot addition to Neiman Marcus and a 60,000-square-foot addition of restaurant and retail space.
  • Scheduling a public hearing about Related Beal’s Congress Square project.
  • Approving and extending the Simmons College institutional master plan in the Fenway neighborhood.