The office building at 470 Myles Standish Blvd. in Taunton is among several properties recently purchased by Boston-based Griffith Properties.
Driving by for years, J. Brad Griffith always regarded 200 Ballardvale St. in Wilmington as “the ugliest building on [Interstate] 93,” but when the longtime home of Agfa Corp. was offered for sale, officials at Boston-based Griffith Properties quickly made it their largest real estate investment to date.
“We felt we had a pretty good opportunity,” the namesake principal offered in a recent interview, explaining that he and partner Tod Brainard believed the aging nature of the space could be remediated sufficiently to attract modern office tenants. The true beauty of the asset, Griffith said, is “a super location” fronting I-93. The 36-acre site is also flanked by Route 128 nine miles south and Interstate 495 just to the north.
Bought with capital partner Praedium Group last summer for $20 million, 200 Ballardvale St. is among several assets purchased recently by Griffith Properties, including two Taunton office buildings just acquired for $7.7 million. Both 440 and 470 Myles Standish Blvd. are fully leased, with tenant Princess House actually extending its deal by seven years as part of the purchase agreement. Totaling 75,000 square feet, the two structures are located in Taunton’s Myles Standish Industrial Park.
Meredith & Grew principal David L. Pergola and Vice President Anthony Biette brokered the sale of the Taunton buildings by a private investor. Griffith Properties also owns a 140,000-square-foot manufacturing building in Franklin and is seeking other deals along the East Coast, especially in the Washington, D.C., market.
‘A Little Imagination’
The main focus for the firm at present, however, is in repositioning 200 Ballardvale St. Griffith Properties and Praedium have retained ADD Inc. of Cambridge to design a $10 million overhaul of the property, which is actually two buildings joined together for a total of 345,000 square feet of space.
Constructed in 1979 and 1981 by Compugraphics as a high-tech printing machine plant, 200 Ballardvale St. is being given new mechanical systems, improved common areas and a facade upgrade that will offer both a fresh look for the park from I-93 and large windows to provide greater light inside the buildings. Among those anticipating a good response from tenants is Cushman & Wakefield principal James Thomson, who is overseeing the leasing team along with colleagues Torin Taylor, Richard Ruggiero and Sean Lynch.
“You just need a little imagination to turn it around,” said Thomson, who presented Griffith Properties and Praedium with the deal when Agfa opted to put the site up for sale. As with Griffith, Thomson said he had long marveled at the prospects for 200 Ballardvale St. if the user/owner ever opted to make it available.
Now that the renovation is in full force, Thomson said he believes Griffith will produce results similar to other real estate successes he engineered while at Leggat McCall Properties. That Boston-based firm was a key player in the region for a quarter-century prior to Griffith selling his ownership stake in 2001. Prior to his shift into a short-lived retirement, Griffith had overseen such real estate overhauls as the Totten Pond Office Park in Waltham and one of the original suburban real estate rebirths, the restoration of the Carling Brewery in Natick into a Class A office complex that today serves as the headquarters of Boston Scientific Corp.
“This is a classic Brad project,” Thomson said of the revamping of 200 Ballardvale St. “It’s a big [example] of what he has specialized in, and he always does a great job Â… I think they are going to do very well there.” The existing space at 200 Ballardvale St. is being targeted at companies needing between 50,000 square feet and 200,000 square feet, although it will be subdividable to 10,000 square feet once an anchor tenant is on board. Space per square foot is being priced in the low teens on a triple-net basis, said Brainard, who also previously worked at LMP. Brainard predicted that 200 Ballardvale St. will attract tenants within a 20-mile radius, especially those seeking 100,000 square feet or more.
“I don’t think you can be looking for that kind of space without considering us,” concurred Griffith. Besides the quality of the redesign, Griffith noted that 200 Ballardvale St. is barely 20 minutes to Logan International Airport, and also has good access into downtown Boston, particularly given the near completion of the Big Dig, which he maintained has made the suburban north market more viable for tenants.
“It’s very efficient space and we have a ton of parking,” Griffith added in describing other attributes of 200 Ballardvale St. There is enough surface parking to offer 3.2 spaces per 1,000 square feet leased. Additional spots might be generated by structured parking, while tenants also have the opportunity to expand their space occupancy on a 19-acre land parcel that offers 1,900 feet of frontage along I-93 and can yield approximately 300,000 square feet of development.
Griffith is also excited to be teaming up with Praedium, he said, with that New York-based investment group becoming an active player in Greater Boston during the past few years. The firm, for example, is also an investor with Essex River Ventures in the Lexington Corporate Center in Lexington, which has just completed more than 100,000 square feet of leasing. “They are a terrific partner,” Griffith said of Praedium. “We’d love to do more deals with them.”
Joe Clements may be reached at jclements@thewarrengroup.com.
