BPG Properties Ltd. has agreed to buy the Totten Pond Office Center in Waltham in a deal estimated to be in the $45 million range.

In the Massachusetts commercial real estate world of give-and-take, BPG Properties Ltd. has been doing plenty of the former this year, but the Philadelphia-based investor is now preparing to take something locally as well.

Fresh off its $27 million disposition of the Ferncroft Corporate Center in Middleton and the separate sale of 690 Canton St. in Westwood to Colony Realty Partners for nearly $33 million, BPG has agreed to buy the Totten Pond Office Center in Waltham for a price said to be in the $45 million range. In acknowledging the pact, BPG Vice President Albert J. Corr last week said the deal underscores his firm’s commitment to the region even as it completes a flurry of rapid-fire sales in the state.

“We always want to have a presence in [Massachusetts],” said Corr, who declined to discuss specifics of the Totten Pond transaction until the closing, which he estimated will occur in early August. BPG is eyeing other acquisitions throughout the area, but Corr said the firm is particularly pleased to have secured a stake in the central Route 128 submarket and the anchor community of Waltham.

“We’re really excited about being able to buy into that market,” said Corr, whose firm had recently bid on other Waltham properties that ultimately were claimed by competitors. Besides “a fabulous location,” Totten Pond Office Center offers the value-added prospects that BPG has taken advantage of when repositioning its other real estate investments, explained Corr. The asset does sport an occupancy rate near 90 percent, but the 295,000-square-foot park has significant lease rollover coming in the next few years, said Corr, a bonus in a market where rents are escalating rapidly.

“It’s a great opportunity,” said Corr, whose firm plans to make capital upgrades to the three-building park and also is eagerly anticipating ongoing infrastructure improvements to nearby bridges and roadways leading to Route 128.

While keeping its hand in Massachusetts via the Totten Pond agreement, BPG has been among the most prolific sellers of commercial real estate in the Bay State this year. The Middleton and Westwood divestments come on the heels of this month’s sale of 181 and 187 Ballardvale St. in Wilmington to Griffith Properties LLC and AEW Capital Management and the pending sale of BPG’s Campus at Marlborough complex in the MetroWest. Said to be approaching $135 million, the latter deal involves the sale of the 125-acre, 530,000-square-foot office park along Interstate 495 in Marlborough to Eaton Vance Corp. That pending agreement is in place nearly four years after BPG acquired the asset from 3Com Corp. for just under $57.8 million and undertook a successful conversion into a multi-tenanted campus.

‘Incredibly Active Summer’
Totten Pond Office Center was put on the market earlier this year by Crow Family Holdings, a Texas investor that is peddling the three-building park through Trammell Crow Co. Brutalized by the regional recession that hit Massachusetts at the turn of the millennium, central Route 128’s office market has seen a dramatic turnaround in the past 18 months, as evidenced by a mid-year report from Spaulding & Slye that puts the vacancy rate in the 19 million-square-foot submarket at 11.5 percent. The rate has trended down from 15.3 percent vacancy a year ago, while the asking rental rate is now at $27.56 per square foot, up from $23.12 per square foot at mid-year 2005. The best space in Waltham is now approaching $40 per square foot.

Purchased for $32.9 million by Colony Realty Partners, BPG’s 690 Canton St. was marketed by CBRE/New England principals Gary J. Lemire, Phil Giunta, Andy Majewski and Nat Kessler. Some 20 suitors vied for the asset, including a few that reportedly came in at virtually the same pricing levels as the winners. Colony’s ability to close the deal expeditiously aided their selection, according to one broker who has been tracking the activity. “They were able to get it done very quickly,” said the broker, a notion backed up by Corr.

“Colony really differentiated themselves from the rest of the pack,” said Corr. “They were a very good group to work with and did absolutely everything they said they were going to do.” Officials at Colony Realty Partners did not respond to inquiries by Banker & Tradesman’s press deadline, but observers said the company has been aggressively pursuing commercial real estate throughout Massachusetts in recent months. “They are all over the place,” reported one investment sales specialist, who also said the firm appears to be particularly interested in stabilized, higher-end properties such as 690 Canton St. Purchased by BPG for $18.5 million in May 2003, the 165,000-square-foot building has an occupancy rate of 97 percent and a tenant roster that includes such solid-credit companies as New York Life Insurance Co., with most of the leases running past the end of the decade

BPG’s commitment to the Totten Pond Office Center features a bit of a small-world flavor, given that 181 and 187 Ballardvale St. were sold to Griffith Properties LLC, whose founder and namesake, J. Brad Griffith, developed the Waltham park in the 1990s via Leggat McCall Properties. LMP then sold the property to Crow Family Holdings in 2001 for $53.7 million.

The sale of the Ferncroft Corporate Center comes less than two years after BPG purchased the 225,000-square-foot building from Verizon Corp. for $18.9 million. BPG boosted occupancy from 57 percent to more than 80 percent shortly after buying the property. The 8-story building was purchased last week by Behringer Harvard for $27 million.

Looking ahead, Corr said BPG continues to entertain more acquisitions in Greater Boston, especially in the suburbs, although he declined to identify any of the properties in its sights. One challenge, he said, has been to narrow the acquisitions focus in the face of a glut of commercial real estate being put on the sales block, with new assets being added to the inventory on a daily basis. “This has been an incredibly active summer,” Corr said. “There is just so much out there right now that you have to step back and [identify] what properties you really want to go after and then work as hard as you can to get them [under agreement].”