This Week's Boston Deal Sheet
The developer of a Roxbury redevelopment project has abandoned plans to build multifamily housing due to the challenging financing markets.
Alexandra Partners LLC filed a notice with the Boston Planning & Development Agency last week saying it no longer wants to move forward with a residential redevelopment of the Alexandra Hotel at 1767-1769 Washington St. in Roxbury.
Instead, the developer wants to revert back to its initial pre-pandemic proposal for a 150-room boutique hotel.
In its notice, the development team, consisting of Jas Bhogal and Thomas Calus, cited the high interest rate environment as the main factor for the switch.
"The financial markets of 2022-2023 and the attendant interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve of 5.5% in 18 months has substantially impaired the available financing in the residential housing construction market," the developers wrote. "As a result, the residential project is not presently economically viable."
The development team had originally proposed a hotel project in 2018 but switched over to a residential plan in 2021 due to the "harsh economic reality of the hotel industry," at the time.
The developers received approval in 2022 for a 13-story, 70-unit condominium project that would preserve the façade of the five-story hotel and construct the condo building on a vacant lot behind it. The development was estimated to cost $69M, including the $8.4M to restore the façade.
SALES
Synergy Investments acquired the 407K SF office tower at 101 Arch St. for $78M from an entity linked to Clarion Partners. The 21-story tower is on top of the Downtown Crossing MBTA stop and last sold for $121.7M in 2005. The office tower is 82% leased with over 30 tenants, including Rockland Trust, KP Law, PC and Thorton Tomasetti.
JLL’s Coleman Benedict, Chris Angelone, Scott Carpenter, Brooke Howard, Scott Tully Jr. and Rachel Bliss brokered the deal.
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Kinross Real Estate LLC acquired a six-story office building at 60 Canal St. for $8M from Cannon Hill Capital Partners, according to public records. The 46K SF building is 40% leased to ski shop The Ski Monster. The developer is considering converting the top four unoccupied floors into housing, the Boston Business Journal reported.
LEASES
Draper Labs plans to move its microelectronics division to Lowell as part of UMass Lowell's $800M mixed-use development, Gov. Maura Healey announced Thursday. Draper will act as the anchor tenant at the Lowell Innovation Network Corridor, a planned 1.2M SF development consisting of nearly 500 residential units, 461 beds of student housing and several buildings dedicated to technology and STEM-related uses.
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Zoll Medical Corp. signed a 111K SF lease at The Davis Cos.' 38 Upton Drive industrial site in Wilmington. The medical devices company plans to take more than half of the space at the 215K SF industrial and flex building. The facility is part of Davis' 37-acre, five-building Upton Crossing campus. JLL's Joe Fabiano, James Lipscomb, Jordan Yarboro and Brian Tisbert represented Davis, and JLL's Rachel Marks and Chelsea Andre represented the tenant.
FINANCING
Rockland Trust provided $21M in construction financing for the first phase of redevelopment of the Eagle Mill complex in Lee. Boston-based Rees-Larkin Development and Berkshire Housing Development Corp. received the funding for the 56-unit development. Of the new units, 36 will be set aside for households earning up to 60% of the area median income, and eight will be for households earning 30% AMI.
PERSONNEL
Boston-based private equity firm Rockpoint appointed Tom Gilbane and Aric Shalev as co-presidents. In their new roles, Gilbane and Shalev will continue to be involved in the firm's operational and fundraising activities and will continue to work closely with Rockpoint co-founders Bill Walton and Keith Gelb.
Both Shalev and Gilbane have acted as managing members of Rockpoint since 2011. Before joining Rockpoint, Gilbane worked at Westbrook Real Estate Partners, where he oversaw the company's U.S. and European investment and asset management activities. Shalev also worked at Westbrook and was involved in Western U.S. investment and asset management.
CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
Two more office-to-residential conversion projects have been filed with the BPDA from Boston developer Greg McCarthy, the Boston Business Journal reported. The proposals call for converting a former Boston Medical Center office building at 615 Albany St. and another office building at 129 Portland St. into a total of 49 residential units. The latest submissions bring the total proposals filed for the city's conversion tax break to six, and those projects would create 216 housing units.
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GFI Partners plans to redevelop the former Grafton State Hospital into a 200K SF development, according to a press release from the seller, MassDevelopment. The site at 124 Westboro Road would be the new home of either two industrial buildings or a life sciences project. The firm bought the site for $2.6M, according to public records. Construction on the site is expected to begin this summer and is projected to finish in 2026.
The site is located near Tufts University's Grafton Science Park and its Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. The site is zoned for office, research and development, and light manufacturing uses.
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Winstanley Enterprises and NorthPoint Development won approval for a 524K SF distribution center in Westfield. The 126-acre site, dubbed Falcon Landing, would include 362 parking spaces and 322 tractor-trailer spaces. The site can accommodate one or two tenants.
