This Week’s Boston Deal Sheet
In the strong retail market (rents up, vacancies down, asset prices high), Linear Retail is paying top dollar for suburban properties--$57.5M for two shopping centers in Waltham and N Andover. If you buy in top locations, retailers will follow you, Linear partner Aubrey Cannuscio tells Bisnow.
Linear bought the two shopping centers with three properties as part of a long term strategy to expand its footprint in these markets. Waltham, which has an inner belt location, is seeing growth in its office and multifamily sectors, yet has few top-tier retail centers. North Andover and neighboring Andover boast a demographic of high income households and an active office market, Aubrey tells us. In Linear’s 77 property portfolio, 20 assets are in Boston proper, including Millennium Place, the Financial District and Beacon Hill.
Linear expanded its retail portfolio to include Main Street Marketplace at 1030 Main St in Waltham (above), and the adjacent building at 1036 Main St. The shopping center is 100% leased, Aubrey says. It’s got a convenient location near Rt 128, and Brandeis University; lots of rooftops, offices and the center has ample parking. Linear also acquired Eaglewood Shops at 175 Turnpike St in North Andover. This center is on Rt 114, the main commercial strip for Andover and N Andover, which are close to Merrimack College and an active office market, Aubrey says.
Construction & Development
Developer David Goldman will invest $47M to convert the long vacant former Holy Trinity German Church and Rectory at 136 Shawmut Ave in the South End into 33 units of new housing with underground parking. Finegold Alexander Architects designed the adaptive reuse that retains some historic elements and aligns them with modern steel and glass elements.
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The Boston Preparatory Charter Public School expects to break ground this fall on its own $24M school in Hyde Park and leave the space it leases in a former neighborhood parochial school. The nearly 49k SF, three-story new facility will include outdoor recreational facilities, a gymnasium wing, science labs, a library, cafeteria, and integrated technology. The project designed by Studio G Architects will start construction in October and be completed by March ‘17.
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Relief is coming for some low income households now that The Brookview House Development Corp will build a $4M all-affordable development at 35 Hansborough St in Dorchester with 12 apartments and 4,000SF of space where programs will be held for residents and neighbors. The developer will seek public funding to make the housing restricted to low income people in perpetuity.
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Watertown-based JC Cannistraro won tentative designation to redevelop Parcel N at 25 Fid Kennedy Ave in the Boston Marine Industrial Park. This gives the 50-year-old company six months to conduct due diligence and decide if it will pull the trigger on the redevelopment of the existing two-story building. If it does, it will close its suburban manufacturing facilities and relo to the waterfront 100 workers with supporting offices. Its corporate HQ will remain in Watertown.
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DAHlicious, a yogurt manufacturer is leaving idyllic Vermont for a 5,000/SF plant on Hamilton Street in Leominster. It used funding through MassDevelopment and the Fair Food Fund to finance the purchase of new equipment and help with marketing and brand awareness.
Late in the afternoon on Thursday, one Suffolk Construction worker died and another was injured in an accident at the construction site of Partners HealthCare’s future HQ in Somerville. The project is located at Assembly Row, a mixed-use community being developed by Federal Realty Trust. The workers were injured while installing an elevator. Our deepest sympathies go out to the workers’ families and we wish the surviving worker a full and speedy recovery.
Assignment
Cushman & Wakefield has been tapped by Berkeley Investments to sell 343 Congress St, 12 Farnsworth St, 381 Congress St, and the Farnsworth Street and Stillings Street parking garages in Fort Point. Like bees to honey, investors have swarmed around this part of the Seaport, including Equity Residential, National Development and MEPT advised by Bentall Kennedy.
Leasing
Protection Solutions leased nearly 14k SF at 35 Jeffrey Ave in Holliston where it will install and distribute paint protection film used on motor vehicles. RW Holmes Realty SVP Craig Johnston repped the landlord, and Boston Realty Advisors’ Adam Meixner repped Protection Solutions.
Financing
Linchris Hotel Corp of Hanover secured $50M in financing through HFF for four of its hotel properties in its home state of Massachusetts (the 293-room Wyndham hotel at 123 Old River Rd in Andover) and in Springfield, Vermont; Poughkeepsie, New York; and in Hialeah Gardens, Florida.
People
National construction management firm Shawmut Design and Construction, promoted two project executive to directors. John Tobin is now the director of hotels and Eric Geisler is director of sports venues. John, with Shawmut since ’08, has worked with clients such as The Palace Hotel in New York. Eric has done projects at Santa Anita Park and all 30 Major League Baseball parks as well as site improvements to Madison Square Garden in New York and renovations to TD Garden in Boston.
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David Hayes has been named the next president and CEO of BSC Companies, the parent firm of BSC Group and Geonetics providing major developers with engineering, planning, landscape architecture, transportation engineering, and ecological services. He succeeds outgoing President Charles Kalauskas. David will be responsible for the operational and financial management of BSC Group and its affiliate, which are based in Boston and Glastonbury, Conn.
Point of Information
As of last week, the bathrooms in City Hall are all gender neutral. The reason: they’re safer and more welcoming to members of the LGBT, disabled and gender-nonconforming communities, Mayor Marty Walsh says.
