Suburban Boston Office Sells For Less Than One-Fifth Of Its 2018 Price
The South Shore has seen yet another steeply discounted office sale just a few doors down from its last.
FoxRock Properties acquired 1200 Crown Colony Drive in Quincy for $6M from Bridge Investment Group, according to deed records posted Wednesday. The seller bought the property in 2018 for $43M.
The 236K SF property is located in the Crown Colony Office Park and is a half mile from Quincy Adams MBTA stop and near I-93.
The new landlord said it has already lined up deals with new tenants. They will join private aviation company Magellan Jets and law firm Baker, Braverman & Barbadoro in the building, according to a press release.
FoxRock, which is based in Quincy, owns 5M SF of office, life sciences, industrial, medical and mixed-use space, primarily in Boston's suburbs and in Florida and Rhode Island, according to its website.
"We think this is an opportunity to own a best-in-class property in a best-in-class city,” FoxRock Owner Rob Hale said in the release. “We’re seeing an influx of organizations that are attracted to the value proposition of being based in Quincy, and growing in Quincy. We are very bullish about the business community and workforce in the city.”
Hale isn't the only one with faith in Quincy's office market.
In June, Westwood investor Ali Lofti paid $5.5M to acquire the 120K SF building at 400 Crown Colony Drive, the former headquarters of the Patriot Ledger, the Boston Business Journal reported. Lofti bought the property through an auction for less than a third of the $18M that seller UBS paid in 2005.
Lofti told the BBJ that he believed workers would return back to the office and that it is an opportune time to buy these assets.
Office properties in Boston have also been selling at steep discounts in recent months, and an MSCI report found that the city's central business district suffered the largest drop in commercial property prices of any global city last year. These price drops are leading other owners to appeal their property assessments, and they are expected to deal a blow to local tax revenues.
