Three developers are hoping to transform a gray, 22-story, toxic tower jutting out of a triple-decker neighborhood in East Cambridge into new offices, homes and retail space.
The Sullivan courthouse and jail at 40 Thorndike St. stands out from its surroundings in terms of stature, but it’s no environmental or neighborhood darling.
So the Department of Capital Asset Management (DCAM) has decided to sell the property and let a private real estate company do the dirty work of up to $35 million worth of asbestos removal, and tens of millions more for a complete redevelopment of the building. Estimates by industry executives familiar with the project put the cost for such massive renovations at upward of $170 million.
DCAM is down to three finalists – HYM Investment Group, Leggat McCall Properties and DivcoWest – that all have a different vision for the future of the concrete megalith near the MBTA’s Lechmere station and the CambridgeSide Galleria mall.
Home Field Advantage?
Boston-based HYM’s proposal calls for stripping concrete and other materials to the steel and removing the top four floors of the property, where there jail is housed – the only developer in the hunt planning to do so, HYM Founding Partner Thomas O’Brien told Banker & Tradesman.
The rebuilt tower would contain about 400,000 square feet of office space, 11,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and up to 50 units of housing. That housing would better weave the property into the surrounding residential context, O’Brien said, adding that HYM’s plan would include a café, something for which neighbors have lobbied. HYM would target the high-tech firms that are so prevalent in the East Cambridge and Kendall Square areas.
HYM has spent plenty of time in the immediate area, given its stake in nearby – and often snakebitten – NorthPoint residential and office development site. O’Brien said that experience has built a relationship between the firm and residents, and said he thinks it has made neighbors more comfortable with the company’s plan. If his firm is chosen as the site’s developer, he said construction could start in 2013 and would take between 35 and 38 months, including demolition and asbestos removal.
“There are other respondents who are not really from the area,” O’Brien told Banker & Tradesman. “We’ve spent a lot of time with the neighborhood, so I think [neighbors] are comfortable with the proposal. We feel very comfortable that we’ll be able to permit what we’re proposing.”
West Coast Cool
Another finalist, San Francisco’s DivcoWest, is counting on its deep rolodex of West Coast and other high-tech companies to fill the offices it would create in the courthouse building.
Under the Divco plan, the building would retain its height. There would be a mix of about 460,000 square feet of office space and 30,000 square feet of ground floor retail that could include a neighborhood grocer.
It would also have 50 to 100 parking spaces, and DivcoWest is considering a housing component, depending on the project’s configuration, according to proposals made public by the city. The company said it expects between 1,000 and 1,500 jobs would be located in the tower once it was filled with tenants.
DivcoWest also owns the adjacent Davenport building, where tenants like Zipcar and HubSpot are outgrowing their spaces. Additionally, the company has a long-term lease with the city of Cambridge for the parking garage that has served the courthouse. So the firm will try to create a campus atmosphere for companies growing out of Davenport space to move into the new tower if it is granted control of the site.
A timeline obtained by Banker & Tradesman shows the company expects construction to take about 20 months.
“The courthouse transformation presents an exciting opportunity for DivcoWest, the Cambridge community and the commonwealth of Massachusetts,” said Keith Wallace, managing director of DivcoWest. “We see the courthouse as becoming a catalyst for more national recognition of the technology cluster, which has already begun in East Cambridge. It will connect the dots between existing technology office buildings, such as the Davenport, with the broader Cambridge area and, equally important, other growing technology centers around the country.”
Officially Office
The third developer in the running, Boston-based Leggat McCall Properties, is proposing roughly 500,000 square feet of office space and 50,000 square feet of retail. As with HYM’s plan, the main objective starting out is to “re-skin” the building with a more aesthetically pleasing combination of glass and other materials on the exterior, said William Gause, executive vice president with Leggat McCall.
Leggat McCall also said it has tech tenants in its crosshairs. The firm has already worked with Cambridge companies – it provided development management for the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, a research institution, for a seven-story addition and renovation to the Hill Building in Kendall Square.
“We don’t envision any residential uses there,” Gause told Banker & Tradesman. “There is the potential for 3.5 million square feet of residential development at NorthPoint alone. We see office as frankly the highest and best use for the building given the configuration of the building and given the dynamics of the residential market.”
Office space makes sense, especially in the East Cambridge/Kendall Square submarkets, where office vacancy was just 6.7 percent, according to information from Richards Barry Joyce & Partners. If chosen, Leggat McCall said it would likely start construction in early 2014.
Meet The Street
But before construction can start, a developer has to be designated for the site, the building must be purchased by the developer, and prisoners still need to be moved to another facility. According to Alex Zaroulis, spokesperson for the state’s executive office for administration and finance, DCAM expects to recommend a finalist at the end of October.
No matter who is selected to redevelop the site, for Cambridge economic development officials, where the building meets the street is one of the most important aspects of the project, said Susan Glazer, deputy director for community development for the city.
“It’s a state process, so we don’t have a lot of say in it,” Glazer offered. “Now, there are some blank walls along the street that are less pedestrian-friendly than if you had some active use on ground floor. So we want see something to enhance the street life. It is a residential neighborhood and we have to acknowledge that.”
Email: jcronin@thewarrengroup.com
