Prospective tenants hoping to secure a home in a speculative office building being built at Assembly Row in Somerville should be able to move into the 130,000-square-foot property around the end of 2014.
Those tenants will likely include smaller, fast-growing technology companies that cannot find space in Boston’s tightening Seaport office market, said Donald Briggs, president of Federal Realty Investment Trust. Federal is the company behind the Assembly Row retail, residential and office development along the Mystic River.
Briggs would welcome a single tenant to take the entire 100,000 square feet of office space that will be available, with 30,000 square feet of ground-floor retail below. But those smaller companies would also work fine for the 33,000-square-foot floor plates, Briggs said. Federal is speaking with a variety of tenants currently, but Briggs would not name any. However, Briggs confirmed that retail leases have been signed with Brooks Brothers Factory Store, Chico’s women’s clothing line, Papagayo and Legal C Bar.
"This building project is right on the waterfront here," Briggs told Banker & Tradesman. "It completes the neighborhood we’re creating. There’s a lot of velocity in the smaller, faster-growing companies."
The first phase of the project includes the office space, 450 residences in four buildings, an AMC movie theater and 330,000 square feet of retail space, including about 40 factory outlet stores. All told, the development has entitlements for five million square feet of space, broken into two million square feet of offices, a 200-room hotel, 500,000 square feet of retail and 2,100 residential units.
The project also includes a 12-acre parcel that was slated for an Ikea store, but the Swedes abandoned the plan. Then Federal signed papers to buy the site. The company is committed to building a large grocery store and medical office building, Briggs said. However, the sale is dependent on Federal gaining approvals for a major grocery store to be built on the property. The company still needs approvals from the city’s board of aldermen, which would require eight of the 11 members to vote for approval. Yet many residents oppose the move to build a single-story supermarket and want a denser, mixed-use on the 12-acre parcel, said state Sen. Pat Jehlen.
She said it’s still "tough to say" how the board will vote, which has yet to happen.
The zoning change would allow Federal to build up to a 120,000-square-foot supermarket, a five-story parking garage and a multi-story medical office building, according to Jehlen.
"When the original zoning was passed in 1994 … residents wanted a dense, mixed-use development at Assembly Square, not more big-box development," Jehlen said. "Unlike the suburbs that have hundreds of acres available for development, we have only a few remaining infill areas. We have small commercial tax base, and that puts pressure on homeowners. The goal is to expand the commercial tax base and create jobs in Somerville. With [the new Orange Line T station being built nearby], folks were hoping for a larger development for more jobs and tax dollars. Large, single-story, big box stores don’t generate much in the way of taxes, opposed to taller office buildings, for instance."
