PLUNGING INTO THE SEAPORT; THE DEAL SHEET
| The Seaport District, long on the brink of take-off as a new CRE hub, took a big step forward with Seaport Center (aka 70 Fargo St,) leasing nearly 80k SF across four tenants: Monster.com,Interaction Associates, Verizon, and Altran Solutions. |
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| Owned by The Beal Companies and Rockpoint Group, the recently renovated building is now 80% occupied, up from 35% in 2006. JLL is its exclusive leasing agent, with Bill Barrack and Ben Heller repping the landlord. Monster.com, for its first Boston office, leased 28k SF, repped by NAI Hunneman. Verizon was repped by CBRE for 28k SF, Altran for 13.5K SF by Grubb & Ellis, and Interaction, with 10k SF, was represented by FHO Partners. |
| LeasesIBM has renewed its lease for 67,767 SF at One Rogers St. in Cambridge for floors one through three of the six-story, Class A building. JLL?s Peter Bekarian represented the owner, Principal Real Estate, and JLL?s Brendan Callahan negotiated for IBM. JLL manages the 252k SF property that is adjacent to the CambridgeSide Galleria and Hotel Marlowe. *** Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage has leased 54,034 SF at 52 Second Avenue in Waltham, relocating from elsewhere in that city. Richards Barry Joyce?s Jon Varholak and Ron Friedman repped the tenants, while JLL sat at the table for the sub-landlord, National Grid. *** Mobile Messenger renewed its 20k SF lease at 311 Arsenal St., Watertown, for its regional HQ. FHO?s John Boyle and Ryan Romano repped the tenant, and The Beal Companies? Bob Doherty repped for the landlord, the President and Fellows of Harvard College. *** Breuer & Co., a technology firm specializing in software and services for education and health care, has leased 13.5k SF at 701 Edgewater Dr. in Edgewater Office Park, Wakefield.Michael O?Leary, John Boyle, and Brian Hines repped for the tenant. Wyman Street Advisors? Chip Batchelder represented the landlord, Hobbs Brook Management. *** Regnante Sterio & Osborne, a law firm focused on real estate, estate planning, and environmental issues and transactions has renewed its lease on 8,434 SF at 401 Edgewater Dr., Edgewater Office Park. FHO Partners' Michael O?Leary and John Boyle repped for the tenant. Wyman Street Advisors? Chip Batchelder represented the landlord, Hobbs Brook Management. Assignments Synergy Investment & Development has selected Grubb & Ellisto lease 141 Tremont St., 100 Franklin St., and 109-115 Broad St., three Class B office buildings in the Financial District. Jason Cameron and Matthew Godoff will lead the charge. New Construction The BRA announced it has approved the development of a $90M, 224-unit residential/retail project on the East Boston waterfront that will include parking, 165 residences, 106 hotel or extended-stay rooms, a restaurant, 36-slip marina, water taxi landing, 500 linear feet of Harborwalk, and public open space along the water.Developer New Street Realty Trust will work with Cresset Development as a consultant. Steffian Bradley Architects, Nitsch Engineering will serve as infrastructure consultant, Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates as transportation consultant, and McDermott, Quilty & Miller as legal counsel. Construction is slated to start Q1 ?12. *** The Mattapan Community Health Center, the neighborhood?s largest employer, will double in size. Last week, the BRA approved construction of a new 49,500 SF facility nearby that will aim for LEED Silver. The new four-story health center will house clinical and office space. Rent from ground-floor retail tenants will help support construction. Exam rooms will increase from nine to 19, dental operatories from four to eight, and the lab from 300 SF to 4,100 SF. A permanent mammography suite will replace an off-site van. Construction will start early 2011 and be completed in a year. The development team is the Mattapan Community Health Center as the owner/developer, Burns & Levinson, as the legal counsel, and Steffian Bradley Architects. The health center is a federally qualified independent facility affiliated with Boston Medical Center and Brigham and Women's Hospital/Partners HealthCare. Build-out Fox RPM is representing Avid Technology to oversee the construction and move into its new global HQ: 203k SF of offices and labs at Network Drive in Northwest Park, Burlington (one of the biggest leases signed in '09). Avid expects to occupy the three Nordblom-owned buildings in early June. Gensler and RDK Engineers are also on Avid?s project team. Honors Environments at Work, a Haworth office furniture dealer, announced that it was honored by the Boston Business Journal as one of the 60 fastest growing private companies in the metropolitan region. BBJ?s Pacesetters award recognized it for managing rapid growth and robust revenues from ?06 to '09. Data U.S. CRE prices fell 0.5% in March, according to Moody?s/REAL Commercial Property Indices, the second month decline in value following a slight rebound in prices earlier this year. By the end of the month, prices were down 24.9% from a year ago and 40.5% from two years ago. They are 42.1% below the peak values of October 2007, Moody/REAL reports. *** The delinquency rate on US CMBS paper rose 60 basis points in April to 7.02% for a total of $46B, according to Moody?s Investor Service?s Delinquency Tracker. That was the second highest jump in the history of the DQT, after the 69 basis points increase in March. During April, 415 loans totaling $5.9B became delinquent. Among property types, hotel delinquencies rose most and offices least. Geographically, the West saw the steepest climb and the East the lowest. *** A record number of non-traded REITs were launched last year to capitalize on investor appetite for CRE stocks, according to research from Blue Vault Partners. The 12 new REITs of '09 (the most formed in any one year since 1990) represent a large expansion for the industry. By the end of 2009, the non-traded REIT industry consisted of 30 open and active programs and 18 closed to new investments, with an estimated total of $68B in assets under management. |
