0 Kendall Square Initiative Submitted by MIT

Kendall Square office building

From MIT

MIT has presented their update plan for Kendall Square in Cambridge. Kendal Square is currently one of the hottest office markets nationally with record rents for Class A & B office space.  Major tenants include Microsoft and Google.

From MIT:

The Kendall Square Initiative aims to create a vibrant mixed-use district featuring six new buildings on what are now MIT-owned parking lots in the East Campus/Kendall Square area, including three buildings for research and development, two for housing, and one for retail and office space. The plan will produce approximately 250 net new housing units for graduate students and approximately 290 new housing units for market use, more than 100,000 square feet of new and repositioned ground-floor retail, and nearly three acres of new and repurposed open spaces — in addition to providing research and development space in support of Kendall Square’s growing innovation district.

The Initiative was developed as a result of approximately seven years of internal and external dialogue. The Cambridge City Council approved new zoning for MIT’s properties in the East Campus/Kendall Square area in 2013, laying the foundation for the advancement of the mixed-use proposal.

0 Boston Office Market Closes 10th Consecutive Quarter of Positive Absorption

Boston office market trends

Credit: TransWestern.net

The Boston Office market continues ahead with its 10th positive quarter of absorption.

From TWurls.com:

Greater Boston’s office market closed its 10th straight quarter of positive growth, albeit at a much slower pace than the 15-year record high of 2 million square feet absorbed during second-quarter, according to “officeSTATus — Q3 2015,” a new research report from Transwestern | RBJ. Despite tenants absorbing only 36,000 square feet of office space during third-quarter 2015, the market has seen a robust 3.6 million square feet of positive absorption during the past 12 months Ë•’ a more accurate indicator of market strength.

“We were unlikely to maintain the pace that was set during the second quarter, which had the highest absorption rate since the dot-com boom in 2000,” said Northeast Research Director Chase Bourdelaise. “An important contributor to the robust 12-month absorption growth is the continued positive gains to the region’s office-using employment, which has increased 12.0 percent since 2009.”

0 Kendall Square to Copley Move for Notable Cambridge Firms

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 Kendall Square Office Space gets Remade

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 Cambridge Offices for Tech Giants Compared

Kendall Square Office space in cambridge for twitter

Credit: Boston Herald

Where would you rather work?  Google, Microsoft or Amazon.  Have a look at the benefits each has in the Kendall office in East Cambridge.

Xconomy.com has provided an office space comparison of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon’s Kendall Square office space. The articles notes, “just about every West Coast tech company worth its salt has established a branch office in the [Kendall Square] neighborhood. But some are larger than others: the Twitter, Facebook, and Apple outposts remain relatively small, while Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have all established large footprints.”

For more specifics on the tech companies Cambridge offices, jump over to coverage on Xconomy.com.

0 Google Opens New Cambridge Office

Google opens Kendall Sq office

Credit: BetaBoston

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” and with that, their new office in Cambridge inspire.  The following are the 10 items about Google philosophy, and some things to think about as you type in your next query:

1.       Focus on the user and all else will follow.

2.       It’s best to do one thing really, really well.

3.       Fast is better than slow.

4.       Democracy on the web works.

5.       You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.

6.       You can make money without doing evil.

7.       There’s always more information out there.

8.       The need for information crosses all borders.

9.       You can be serious without a suit.

10.      Great just isn’t good enough.

Interior of Google's cambridge office in Kendall Square

Credit: BetaBoston

Betaboston offers a report on the opening of Google’s new Cambridge offices:

“Google opened up its new offices in Cambridge today which connects three Cambridge Centers into one expansive campus sitting above Kendall Square. The key space in the complex is the (somewhat controversial) “Connector” built across the once fully public  rooftop garden between Four and Five Cambridge Center.”

0 Cambridge Office Building at 90 Hamilton St. Sells for $2.6M

office space at 90 Hamilton Street in Cambridge MA

Credit: Banker & Tradesman

Boston Realty Advisors capital markets team completes another sale transaction.  90 Hamilton Street is located in Cambridge, MA.

From Banker & Tradesman:

“MRH Hamilton LLC of Brookline bought a 7,800-square-foot office building 90 Hamilton St. in Cambridge for $2.6 million…The parcel is suitable for use as an investment property or redevelopment for a variety of commercial or residential uses, according to Boston Realty Advisors.”

You can read the complete B&T article, here

0 Boston Office Space 2013: Year End Review

Boston’s Financial District attracted positive demand in 2013 as Class B properties and Class A commodity space continue to benefit from the lack of prime availability. Tenants flocked to the Financial District from supply constrained markets like East Cambridge, the Back Bay and Seaport. This demand saw year over year rents increase in excess of 20% in the Class B market. Many Landlords are capturing this demand by proactively renovating and upgrading suites to open concept, spec suites that offer today’s tenants ready-to-go spaces with more flexible lease commitments. The red line continues to be the main driver and 2014 is poised to see a true renaissance of Boston Downtown Crossing neighborhood. Boston’s transportation hub is spurred by the new Millennium Tower redevelopment of the Filene’s Basement site. This area will continue its transformation as a hub for new and emerging companies. Expect rising rental rates and continued demand to drive some Class B building owners to complete capital improvement projects and upgrade second generation spaces to compete for tenants.

Boston office space price over past 5 years

Credit: CoStar

Boston commercial real estate market stats 2013
Vacancy & Rental Rates:
Overall 2013 saw tenants absorb over 1,000,000 SF square feet of commercial office real estate in Boston’s Central Business District.  The Class B office market in particular saw 322,258 SF of absorption in 2013 bringing the vacancy rate to 8.0 percent. This trend of positive absorption has continued over the last 8 quarters resulting in the increase of asking lease rates for class B product to an average asking rate of $31.08 per rentable square foot. Supply constrained markets like the Back Bay and Seaport continue to impact market fundamentals by increasing demand in other areas of the city like the Financial District resulting in further recovery in rental rates reviling pre-recession pricing of early 2008.

Demand Driver: Class B real estate activity provided a look into the dynamics of the Boston economy and leasing activity suggests that Boston is not slowing down and  expected to continue with compound annual rent increases excess of 10 percent through 2015. As the value play alternative, the Class B Financial District market continued capitalizing on rising Class A rents combined with limited supply in the Seaport, Back Bay and East Cambridge.  This is most evident within the Financial District where tenants seeking value have poured into buildings with great T access like Downtown Crossing.

Outlook: Healthy fundamentals persist in submarkets like the Back Bay, Cambridge and the Seaport District and demand appears to be spilling into neighboring submarkets. Continued growth and positive indicators seen regionally mixed with the most optimistic confirmation of stock market and national employment data seen since 2007 suggests further gains in employment and real estate occupancy in coming quarters. With some of the regions most desired locations becoming market wide choice-constricted and no speculative construction underway market wide, many expanding tenants will increasingly consider peripheral locations and other creative solutions with rent levels adjusting to changing demand trends.

Class A office market stats for Boston commercial real estate
class B office market stats for Boston commercial real estate

0 Cambridge Office Rents Push Out Small Businesses

Cambridge Center office space in Cambridge Mass

4 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA

If you’re a CEO of o a small software company that has recently been funded where do you go?  Well the next question is what can you prudently afford. Gone are the days of leasing as much space as you can and hoping for revenue. Today’s decision makers would love to continue to grow their business within close proximity of the think tanks at Harvard and MIT; the reality, however, is that those locations are being gobbled up by the large publicly-traded tech companies with a worldwide presence. The notion of paying $60 PSF doesn’t affect them as much when you compare it to pricing in London or Singapore.

The Boston Business Journal describes the surge in Class A office space in Cambridge, identifying the “one-year increase roughly equates to a 25-to-30 percent price hike for tenants seeking a new or expanded beachhead in the Bay State’s innovation hub.”

You can check out office space available in Cambridge or read the BBJ’s article.