The Wakefield Office Park, which includes 100 Quannapowitt Parkway in Wakefield (pictured above), has changed hands for $58 million.
The jury may still be out on global warming, but commercial real estate sales are experiencing one of the hottest summer starts in recent memory as the 2004 cycle reaches the mid-year point. In the latest wave, the Boston Stock Exchange headquarters at 100 Franklin St. has been put under agreement for an estimated $20 million, while a New York company has reportedly tied up another Boston Financial District office building at 184 High St. In suburban Boston, the Wakefield Office Park on Quannapowitt Parkway in Wakefield has changed hands for $58 million.
The 100 Franklin St. and Wakefield assets are owned by clients advised by SSR Realty Advisors, which also has Boston’s 211 Congress St. up for sale. Cushman & Wakefield of Massachusetts President Robert E. Griffin Jr. refused comment on the 100 Franklin St. rumor when contacted last week, but said the sale of 100 Quannapowitt Parkway in Wakefield to Global Innovation Partners indicates renewed interest for properties along the Route 128 business corridor.
“It was an excellent acquisition for [Global] at below replacement cost, and it was a good execution by SSR, which bought it a few years back and has done very well with it,” Griffin said of the deal, which equates to about $149 per square foot. The 388,000-square-foot property is almost totally leased to Comverse Network Systems.
Griffin said he anticipates other property owners will be testing the capital market in the coming months, but would not confirm reports that his firm has been retained to sell Prospect Hill and Prospect Place in Waltham on behalf of TA Assoc. Speakers at a mid-year real estate overview earlier in the week reported that the two high-end office buildings, also situated along Route 128, are being put up for sale, while others later claimed Cushman & Wakefield has been tabbed to handle the assignment. Efforts to contact TA officials were unsuccessful.
As for 100 Franklin St., sources said a partnership that includes East-West Enterprises founder Raymond Lee and investor Richard Ruggiero has the nine-story building under contract and is performing due diligence work prior to closing. The group has been active throughout Greater Boston of late, also purchasing the Tower at Northwoods in Danvers earlier this year. SSR is selling the 117,000-square-foot Franklin Street building for substantially less than what it paid barely two years ago, when it was acquired from the Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. for more than $27 million.
‘A Lot Going On’
Global Innovation Partners and SSR officials did not return phone calls to discuss their respective deals. Given a large block of vacancy in the building and the difficult office market, one source opined that the estimated sales price of $170 per square foot was “reasonable” for SSR to accept on the 100 Franklin St. asset. Efforts to contact Lee and Ruggiero through advisor Harry D. Wight were unsuccessful.
On the other side of the Financial District, Centurian Real Estate of New York has committed to 184 High St., which ironically also was owned once by Intercontinental. Centurian is buying the 55,000-square-foot building from Taurus Investments. Other sources claimed Centurian is buying another Hub asset from Taurus, 71-77 Summer St., as well. Calls to Centurian officials in New York and to Taurus at its Boston headquarters were not returned by press deadline, but sources insisted the Big Apple firm has the buildings under agreement.
In other investment news announced last week, Trammell Crow Co. has been retained to trade 160 Federal St. in Boston for Taurus and partner Invesco, while a joint partnership led by Hines Interests has put the Riverfront Office Park in Cambridge into a national portfolio available to investors.
“There’s a lot going on,” acknowledged Elizabeth Thomas of CB Richard Ellis/Whittier Partners, whose investment group has already brokered several high-profile properties in 2004 and is now marketing Clock Tower Place in Maynard for more than $100 million. Thomas and partner Philip Giunta also orchestrated the $24 million sale of Boston’s Lincoln Plaza, a two-building office complex near South Station that is being partly converted to residential use. A similar strategy is now being pursued in the nearby Back Bay, where Gold Assoc. has purchased 441 Stuart St. for $37.5 million with plans to develop more than 90 upscale condominiums on the 11-story building’s upper floors.
The latter deal, reported last week on Banker & Tradesman’s Web site, www.BankerandTradesman.com, ended the longtime ownership of the 177,000-square-foot building by 441 Stuart Street Realty Trust, a partnership that includes Boston parking lot owner and developer W. Kevin Fitzgerald. The art deco structure, known locally as the New England Power Building, opened in 1927.
Calls to Fitzgerald were not returned by press deadline, but Gold principal Ronald Gold told Banker & Tradesman that his firm hopes to create between 90 and 114 units on the fourth floor and above, with architect Bargmann Hendrie + Archetype having been retained to handle the design. A two-story, 35,000-square-foot Healthworks fitness center will remain on the second and third floors, Gold said, while retail uses will continue to dominate the ground level.
The 160 Federal St. property offers investors more than 350,000 square feet of prime office space in downtown Boston, said Trammell Crow principal James F. McCaffrey. A sales price has not been set, McCaffrey said, but sources placed the target at $100 million. McCaffrey said he believes both European and institutional investors will covet 160 Federal St., which he estimated is near 80 percent occupancy. The building lost a key tenant when PricewaterhouseCoopers left a 150,000-square-foot space, but McCaffrey said an aggressive leasing effort by Meredith & Grew has filled nearly half of the hole left by the accounting giant.
“It’s a good upside story,” McCaffrey said of 160 Federal St., with both existing cash flow in place and the opportunity to add value to the asset over time. Taurus owns the building in partnership with Invesco Corp.
